
diss r?.q/. 



R.H)k . \V\4-c^ 



PRESENTED BY 



66^ Z. 



ROMANTIC PASSAGES 



nr 



SOUTH¥ESTEM HISTORY; 



INCLUDING 



ORATIONS, SKETCHES, AND ESSAYS. 



.J . 



BY Ai B. MEEK, 

Author of " The Red Eagle," " Songs and Poems of the South," etc. 



N"ET\r YORK: 
S. H. GOETZEL & CO., 117 FULTON STREET. 

MOBILE :— 33 DAUPHIN STREET. 
1857. 



C^^ 



., ^ 






Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1857, b> 

S. H. GOETZEL & COSIPANY, 

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New York. 






FRENCH & WHEAT, 

Printers and Stereotypert 

No. 18 Ann Street Nev York 






PREFACE. 



The maxim of Crebillon — not as we will, hut as the winds loiU, — 
receives many a verification in literary performance. It has been 
so with this volume. The author originally proposed publishing 
an extended collection of his miscellaneous orations, sketches, 
and essays, and arranged the materials' for that purpose, but they 
were found too voluminous for embodiment in the proposed limits. 
Yielding, therefore, to the behests of necesssity, he placed aside 
the larger portion of his productions, and selected such as might 
fairly fall within the purview of the title, suggested by his pub- 
lishers, "Romantic Passages in Southwestern History." The 
contents of the volume are chiefly of this kind, though two of the 
orations, and some of the reflections in others, are of a more gen- 
eral literary character, and scarcely pertinent to the specific ap- 
pellation of the book. They will all be found, however, it is 
believed, — from the stand-points of their view, and the tendency 
of their speculations, — to bear, reflectively at least, upon the 
phases and fortunes of the section of our country, to which the 
more strictly historic papers apply. It should also be stated that 
though the term "Romantic" is used, it is intended to indicate 
ratUer the peculiar character of the incidents, the manner of 



iV PREFACE. 

their arrangement, and the coloring of the style, than any want 
of authenticity in the facts narrated. These were gleaned, through 
years of labor and. research, in a comparatively untrodden field, 
and implicit reliance may be placed upon the good faith of every 
historic statement. 

About half this volume has been published before, in isolated 
portions, in pamphlets or periodicals. The author has been grat- 
tified that his researches in Southwestern History have been 
recognised as valuable, by Bancroft, Theodore Irving, Simms, and 
Pickett, in their more capacious and dignified performances. 
This has induced him to revive his articles as they were originally 
produced, with the addition of other and more copious sketches, 
elucidating our early history. These were written, for incidental 
purposes, while preparing a more elaborate work yet to be pub- 
lished, but they may serve, in their present form, to gratify the 
general reader better than in a more staid and regular connection. 

With these explanations, the author submits this volume, as an 
humble guide-book to an almost uncultured territory, in which 
the Historian, the Novelist, and the Poet may find the richest 
materials and incentives for the highest exercise of their respec- 
tive vocations. 



CONTENTS. 



OKATIONS. 



The Southwest : Its History, Character, and Pros 
PECTS, --------- 



Page. 
13 



Physical Characteristics, ----- 17 

Obscurity of Early Annals, ----- 20 

A Battle Picture, in 1540, 23 

The Spanish and French Eras, - - - - 25 

A Russian Princess at Mobile, - - - - 30 

Bienville's Battles in Mississippi, - - - - 32 

Court of Napoleon in Alabama, - - - - 37 

The Red Men of the Forest, - - - - 43 

Social and Intellectual Condition, - - - - 48 

Influence of African Servitude, - - - - 58 

Brilliant Prospects, ------ 63 

Claims and Characteristics of Alabama History, - 73 

Spanish and French Explorations, Forts, and Mis- 
sionary Establishments, ----- 78 
British Possession during the American Revolution, 85 



vi contents. 

Claims and Characteristics of Alabama History, 

Continued : 

Page. 

Huguenot Colony 'on the Escambia, - - - 88 

Independence Movements at Mobile and Pensacola, 90 

Capture of Mobile, by Galvez, - - - - 91 

Great Commercial House of Panton, Leslie, Forbes 

&Co., - - - - - - - - 92 

First Anglo-Saxon Settlements, - - - - 94 

The Daniel Boones of Alabama, - - - - 96 

Wars and Adventures with the Indians, - - 102 

The Printing Press and the Schoolmaster, - - 104 

Americanism in Literature, ----- 109 



Jack-Cadeism and the Fine Arts, - - - - 147 



National Welcome to the Soldiers Returning from 

Mexico, --- 193 

Incidents on the Northern Lin«, - - - - 200 

Landing of the Army, and Capture of Vera Cruz, - 203 
Passes of the Cordilleras, and Panoramic View of the 

Valley of Mexico, ------ 204 

The Palmetto Regiment, and the Death of Butler, - 206 

Thrilling Incidents, ------ 208 



SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Thf Pilgrimage of De Soto, ----- 213 

Brilliant Armament at Tampa Bay, - - - 216 

March through Georgia, ----- 220 



CONTENTS. Vll 

Continued : 

Page. 

Wanderings in Alabama, ----- 223 

Tuscaloosa, the Great Chief, - - - - - 226 

The Terrible Battle at the City of Mauville, - 228 

March through Mississippi and Battle of Chicasaw, 232 

Discovers the Father of Waters, and is Buried in it, 233 

The Massacre at Fort Mims, and the First White 

Settlements in Alabama, ----- 235 

The Tombeckbee and Tensaw Settlements, and the 

Names of the First Pioneers, - . - 239 

Tecumseh among the Creek Indians, - - - 242 

Battle of Burnt Corn, 245 

Fort Mims and its Defenders, ----- 249 

Destruction of the Fort, ----- 252 

Dixon Bailey and his Death, ----- 256 

Biography of Weatherford, or the Red Eagle, and 

OF Other Creek Chiefs and Warriors, - - 259 

Alexander McGillivray, the Creek Emperor, and Le 

Clerc Milfort, a General of Napoleon, - - 264 
David Tait, the British Colonel, and Charles Weath- 
erford, the Scotch Horse-Racer, - - - 265 
Description of Weatherford, by Claiborne, - - 269 
The Cornells' Family, ------ 274 

Loves of the Wilderness, and Wife-Swapping: a 

True but Tragic Story, - - - - - 275 

The Holy Ground, the Home of Weatherford, - 278 

Battle of Tohopeka, or the Horse-Shoe, - - - 280 

Surrender and Eloquent Speech to General Jackson, 284 

Life After the War, and Anecdotes, - - - 289 



Viii CONTENTS, 



Page. 



The Canoe Fight, and other Eomantic and Sanguinary 

Incidents in the Early History of Alabama, - 295 

Old British and other Boundaries with the Indians, 297 

Komantic History of Mrs. Merrill, - - - 300 

Gallant Feat of Haden and his Dogs, - - - 301 

Singular Escape of Tandy "Walker and George Foster, 303 

Biography of Gen. Samuel Dale, - _ _ 306 

Sketch of James Smith, ------ 309 

Biography of Jeremiah Austill, - - - - 310 

Expedition in Search of the Indians, - - - 312 

The Canoe Fight, ----..- 314 

Subsequent Events in the Lives of Austill, Smith 

and Dale, 318 



Mobile, 323 



ORATIONS. 



THE southwest; 

ITS HISTORY, CHARACTER AND PROSPECTS 

Aisr oi^ATioisr 

BEFORE THE 

(gros0p^t ^odctiT of tijc ^mbcrsitii of gilnbrnna. 
DECEMBER 7, 1839. 



ORATION 



Gentlemen of the Erosophic Society: 

Around this altar, consecrated to the Muses, you 
have again assembled to celebrate the festivities of 
Literature. From the avocations of private life, you 
have called me to act an important part in the cere- 
monies of the time. Bossuet, the first of French 
pulpit orators, tells us that it was his invariable cus- 
tom, when preparing for the delivery of a public 
address, to replenish his mind, by a close study of 
the productions of the master spirit of ancient learn- 
ing — and that, for such occasions, he always re-illu- 
minated " his lamp at the torch of Homer.'' If this 
was the practice of one of the chief of that galaxy of 
intellectual luminaries, which diffused the mild and 
humanizing graces of literature over the turbulent 
reign of Louis the Fourteenth, — ^how much more does 



14 ORATIONS. 

it behove an humble individual, in arising to address 
an American audience — an audience peculiarly suited 
by their manners and customs, their political and lit- 
erary institutions, and by all their habits of thought, 
to criticise and appreciate what may be said, — and 
many of whom are fresh from the investigation of the 
inimitable models of classic lore, — how much more 
does it behove, I say, such an individual, under such 
circumstances, to prepare his mind, with the utmost 
circumspection and care. With a due sense of this 
high obligation. Gentlemen, I should have answered 
your very complimentary request to pronounce your 
Anniversary Discourse, with a prompt but a grateful 
refusal, Tiad I not been urged by other, and, to me, 
more interesting considerations. There are, in my 
mind, a thousand remembrances clustering around 
this spot, which will ever be treasured and dear. 
Here the most blissful period of my life was passed; 
and, as I now look back, through the vista of years, 
to that brief moonlight track upon the waters of 
youth, its incidents pass before me, like the creations 
of a dream, and the feelings it produces are akin to 
the holiest raptures of poetry. Such are the emo- 
tions, always, excited by a return to the intellectual 
home of our boyhood, and the hope of their renewal 
is one of the principal reasons that has brought me 
before you to-day. 

But, Gentlemen, I should ill requite the confidence 
you have reposed in me, and should do violence to my 
own feelings, if, upon this occasion, I were merely to 
attempt to amuse you with rhapsodies of sentiment, 



THE BOUTHWEST. 15 

or to scatter in your path the luxuriant roses that 
bloom in the Eclens of Fancy. We live in a practical 
age, and are met for practical purposes. The long 
course of education which you are pursuing, and which 
to some of you, so far as its collegiate character is 
concerned, will soon cease, — though, to the loving 
heart, its occupations may appear more like elysian 
raptures than the dull realities of life, — and though 
flowers may hang upon every branch, and grateful 
fruits delight the taste — is intended but as a prepara- 
tion and a training for the positions you are to occupy 
in life, — but to enable you to discharge the duties 
which will devolve upon you, with honor to yourselves 
and with benefit to your country. It should be the 
great moral lesson of your tuition that those duties 
will be aggregated and enforced by the advantages 
you receive. 

The Society, within whose circle we are now met, is 
purely practical in its objects. As Lovers of Wisdom, 
you do not seek merely for those gratifications that 
die in the enjoyment, — or for incidents to variegate 
the tedium of study. Yours is no " Beefsteak Club," 
or " King of Clubs," — such as the dissipated literati of 
Europe have been wont to encourage, solely to stimu- 
late the lassitude of the senses. Intellectual and moral 
improvement — improvement of those faculties which 
are to be the bones and sinews of mental manhood — 
these are your views. Eloquence and Logic — that 
logic which can always unerringly tell right from 
wrong, through all ramifications and mysticism — and 
that eloquence wliich can present the deductions of 



16 ORATIONS. 

the intellect or the emotions of the heart, in a manner 
at once clear, cogent and j)leasing — are surely objects 
worthy the attention of any man, however utilitarian, 
whose desire is to be anything more than a mere ma- 
chine in life. 

A superficial spectator of the proceedings of this 
Anniversary might regard them but as the constitu- 
ents of some transient pageant. Not so :- if I have 
read aright the motives which have brought us hither. 
Not so : unless I greatly misappreciate the effects of 
such celebrations. They look to something beyond 
the mere rhetoric and ceremonial of the time. They 
are to exercise no unimportant influence, as they are 
to furnish a permanent remembrance for your future 
lives. The pomps and the processions, — the motley 
crowd, with the sage faces of manhood and the smiling 
eyes of beauty — ^what is said by the eloquent represen- 
tative of your sister society — and even what is uttered 
by your own unworthy speaker, are to be blended 
together, and are to pass to some extent, in more than 
one instance, into the composition of that strange 
piece of mosaic work — the human mind. 

These considerations. Gentlemen, warn me that it is 
my duty to endeavor to make the part assigned me in 
the festivity, productive of some practical good. With 
this purpose in view, — ^with the recollection that I am 
called to speak in the high cause of Letters and Mor- 
als, — with a due consideration of the intellectual em- 
ployments in which you have been, hitherto, engaged — 
of those, which, are hereafter, to occupy your atten- 
tion, and of that theatre, upon which it is your destiny 



THE SOUTHWEST. 17 

to move, not as mere automata in a show, but as 
intellectual and moral agents, around each of whom a 
circle of influence is to be diffused, broader or nari'ower, 
according to your own self-formed characters, — it has 
appeared to me that there is no subject which presents 
such immediate and powerful claims upon your atten- 
tion — the strong claims of practical usefulness and 
philosophic dignity, combined at the same time with 
novelty and entertainment, — as some reflections upon 
the History, Character, and Prospects of the 
Southwest — that particular portion of the Union, 
in which it has pleased a beneficent Providence, to 
cast your lots, and to the improvement of whose insti- 
tutions, and the developement of whose resources, it 
will be your duty, no matter what professions you may 
pursue in life, severally to contribute your parts. It 
is a subject too in which the audience here assembled 
to witness your celebration, have as great an interest 
as you, whether considered as merely intelHgent or as 
operative beings. To this subject I, therefore, respect- 
fully invite your attention, and, if in its treatment I 
should appear dull and, tedious, I beg you charitffbly 
to think, in the quaint language of Selden, in his pre- 
face to Drayton's Poly-Olbion, " that it is not so much 
the fault of him that speaketh, or of the subject he 
handleth, as of that proclivitie of the human temper, 
to be aweary of that which is instructive, because it 
seemeth dry, by addressing the coolnesse of the reason, 
rather than the fervoure of the fancie." 

When the rapt prophet of olden time was led by the 
hand of Divinity, to the summit of the sacred moun- 



18 ORATIONS. 

tain, and, before his wonder-stricken eyes, the rich 
territories of the Promised Land, with all its scenes of 
magnificence and beauty, its tall forests undulating to 
the breezes of a golden simamer, its inviting vallies, 
with their intersecting streams and embosomed lakes, — 
the blue engirdling mountains on the one hand, and 
the flashing sea upon the other — all spread out like 
some great breathing picture — the scene presented, and 
the emotions produced, a]3art from the hoHness of their 
origin, could not have been widely different, or more 
inspiring, than would have met the eye and moved the 
heart of an intelligent spectator, if he could, an hun- 
dred years ago, have been placed upon some eminence 
overlooking the whole Southwest ; and all its magnifi- 
cence, its fertility, its serene beauty, its conveniences 
for the purposes of civilized man, have been presented 
to his mind's eye at once. Our entire country has been 
characterized as possessing natural advantages superior 
to any other part of the world. Bishop Berkeley, in 
that celebrated poem, in which he foretells the great- 
ness of these " happy climes," bases his prophecy upon, 
such advantages, and tells us that, here 

" The force of art, by nature, seems outdone, 
And fancied beauties by the true !" 

But it is upon our section of the Union that these 
blessings are most amply bestowed. Beginning upon 
the eastern border of our State, and proceeding west 
to the farthest line of Louisiana, we pass over perhaps 
the most beautiful and fertile region that the sun looks 
upon in his diurnal travel. Its territories are every- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 19 

where, and in every direction, inigated and linked 
together by noble and navigable rivers, which serve not 
merely to fructify the soil, but to convey its produc- 
tions to safe and commodious harbors. Through its 
western portion, that mighty stream, called in the 
figurative language of the aborigines of this country. 
The Father of Waters, after passing through almost 
every latitude, and demanding, from regions well-nigh 
as remote from each other " as Indus from the pole," 
the tribute of their fountains, — discharges its accumu- 
lated waters, like a flowing ocean, into the Mediterra- 
nean of America. 

This whole region is marked by a fertility of soil 
almost imparalleled. Most of those productions of 
agriculture, which mainly minister to the wants of 
man, here find a genial home. But it is chiefly in the 
production of two of the greatest staples of commerce 
which, by the by, give to the Southwest one of its 
strongest features of peculiarity, that this mighty 
region is distinguished : the Sugar Cane, on the one 
hand, which furnishes a necessary beverage, and one of 
the greatest luxuries of life, for countless thousands, — 
and the Cotton Plant, on the other, which has perhaps 
contributed more than any other article of agriculture, 
to advance the cause of civilization, to facilitate and 
strengthen the pacific intercourse of nations, to afic>rd 
eniployment and subsistence to the destitute, to recom- 
pense industry with opulence, and to alleviate the ills 
which are the inheritance of humanity. 

When we add to these things, the blessings of a 
climate wliich is always genial and agreeable, whether 



ORATIONS. 



viewed in the regal splendor of its summer days, or the 
milder manifestations of its moonlight evenings ; which 
is subject to little of that oppressiveness that belongs 
to those lands which lie directly beneath the path of 
the sun, and to none of the chilling rigors of northern 
latitudes, and when we remember, that with the 
exception of a few points upon the seaboard, " the wing 
of life's best angel. Health, is ever on the breeze," — 
we have a correct idea of the physical characteristics 
of that section of the Union in which we reside. 

The name of the Southwest, with a certain sec- 
tionality of character corresponding thereto, is given 
to this portion of the Confederacy — embracing the 
States of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana — from 
this pervading similarity of physical condition; from 
its geographical position upon the Gulf of Mexico, in- 
to which all its waters discharge themselves; from 
the pursuits of its population, with their resulting 
moral and intellectual peculiarities; and to some ex- 
tent, from the unity and unique character of its early 
history. To some considerations upon the character 
of that History, let me now, Gentlemen, direct your 
attention. 

The early annals of almost every country, particu- 
larly of the States of antiquity, is involved in impene- 
trable obscurity. To account for their origin, they 
are compelled to resort to the dim lights of some be- 
wildered tradition, or, as in the case of that mightiest 
demonstration of political power of the olden world — 
" the Demon City," as she has been called by Herder 
— to create some wild fiction, which comes well nigh 



THE SOUTHWEST. 2j 

blending the incipients of their greatness with the de- 
pravity of a brutal connection. In vain has the lumi- 
nous pencil of Livy, or the glowing pictures of the 
scholar of Halicaruassus, over whose immortal pro- 
duction the nine Muses are said specially to have pre- 
sided, endeavored to throw around their primeval con- 
dition the colorings of historic truth. All is vague 
uncertainty or distorting gloom. Not so with the 
early history of the American States. Their founda- 
tions were wrought in the broad light of an illumina- 
ted age, and their story has passed with all its truth- 
ful lineaments, into the possession of "the preserving 
page." And yet to this general and enobling certain- 
ty there is one important exception.- I mean the early 
history of those States encircling the northern shores 
of the Gulf of Mexico. Differing widely from the 
character of the European adventurers who first dis- 
covered and took possession of this territory; the 
memorials of whose settlements, progress, enterprises 
and intercourse with the natives, commercial, military 
and religious, are scattered through the rare and an • 
tiquated volumes of two foreign languages; and pos- 
sessing but little sympathy for a race so diverse from 
their own, in manners, customs and institutions, and 
who, it is believed, have exercised no influence upon 
the character and destiny of our country; the people 
of the United States have silently assented to the be- 
hests of their historians, and have permitted these 
things to be forgotten. Even that population, which 
now fill the places once held by the French and the 
Spanish, know little or nothing of their history, and 



22 ORATIONS. 

ever and anon, as they stumble over some of the relics 
of these vanished dwellers of our territories, the cry 
of eureka is raised; the "curiosity" becomes a nine- 
days' wonder; and is perhaps, in the end, transmitted 
to the Museum of your University, as a specimen of 
Indian art. To dissipate this ignorance scarcely any- 
thing has been done. A few general facts, as in the 
pages of Bancroft and Ramsey, have been collected 
and given to the world, and that is all. The whole 
history of the Southwest remains to be written. 
And whoever shall go to the work philosophically, — 
who shall delve, amid their quaint and musty tomes, for 
the records of French and Spanish colonization and 
settlement; and shall collect and embody the scattered 
materials for such a history; apart from conferring a 
permanent benefit upon the literature of his country, 
will possess the honor of being like Coleridge's Ancient 
Mariner, when entering the Pacific, well nigh 

" The first that ever burst 



Into that silent sea !" 

Having frequently. Gentlemen, in the course of a 
miscellaneous reading, — under the belief that there is 
no merely theoretical knowledge, which it is more cred- 
itable to a man to possess, than the history of his own 
country, and with the conviction that, if — as Lord 
Bolingbroke has told us — "History is Philosophy teach- 
ing by example,'' that philosophy can be best learned 
from those pages which show us man in his most indi- 
vidual capacity, and under the most novel and strik- 
ing phases of existence; directed my attention to this 



THE ^SOUTHWEST. 23 

but partially explored field of Southwestern history; 
I may be enabled to point out, for your future inves- 
tigation and improvement, some of its more prominent 
and interesting features. The present occasion, how- 
ever, will permit us but to take a hurried and super- 
ficial glance at the subject. Such a glance will sufl&ce 
to show its peculiar and romantic character, and the 
rich fund of historic materials which lie all unappro- 
priated and daily perishing. For the sake of order 
and conciseness, we will pursue the natural divisions 
of the subject into general periods. 

I. Two hundred and ninety-nine years ago, — near a 
century before the Pilgrims had landed at Plymouth, 
or the Cavaliers at Jamestown, and within fifty years 
of the discovery of the continent by Columbus, — upon 
an extensive plain, near the junction of two of our 
principal rivers, in the very heart of this State, might 
have been seen collected two large and hostile armies. 
One of them is composed of the native dwellers in the 
surrounding forests, to the number of ten thousand, 
painted and plumed and armed, according to their 
immemorial customs. The other, though smaller in 
number, presents the more regular appearance, and 
powerful implements of European warfare. They are 
engaged in deadly battle. For hours they fight hand 
to hand, with all the fury of demons. At length the 
savage hordes are driven back by the more systematic 
valor of their opponents. They fly for refuge to a 
city which appears in the back ground of the picture. 
Here they are ])ursued; the walls broken down; and 
amidst the flames of their dwellings — the shrieks of 



24 OKiiTIONS. 

« 

their women and children — the fury of their assailants 
— ^this mighty army is unsparingly destroyed. 
. Is this a picture of fancy? The historic page tells 
/^us that in the year 1539, Hernando de Soto, a Cava- 
lier of Spain, after landing in Florida, with an army 
of one thousand select soldiers, proceeded north 
through the territory of Georgia; entered Alabama at 
its north eastern extremity; descended along the 
banks of the Coosa, to its junction with the Talla- 
poosa; crossed the latter stream; proceeded west 
along the banks of the Alabama; crossed it about 
fifty miles above its junction with the Tombeckbe, 
and there, on the 18th of October, 1540, fought the 
battle of Mobile with the natives, headed by their 
Chieftain Tuscaloosa. For the length of its continu- 
ance, the desperate character of the contest, the hor- 
rors of its details, and the numbers slain upon both 
sides, this was by far the most bloody battle ever 
fought upon the soil of the United States. After re- 
maining several weeks near Mobile, De Soto proceeded 
to the north, crossed the Black Warrior not far south 
of the spot at which we are now assembled, and con- 
tinued his course into the State of Mississippi, where 
he spent the winter. With the natives he fought 
many other desperate battles. Subsequently he dis- 
covered the Mississippi river, and made several exten- 
sive expeditions into the regions beyond it. Through- 
out the whole of this strange pilgrimage, to which he 
was incited by motives of avarice, combined with the 
love of conquest, he encountered dangers and en- 
dured difficulties which have no parallel save in the 



THE SOUTHWEST. 25 

annals of Mexican and Peruvian conquest. At length, 
overcome by fatigue, dissappointed in liis hopes, his 
forces half destroyed by perpetual battles, famine and 
disease — he died of a broken heart, and was buried in 
the middle of that mighty stream which he had been 
the first white man to cross. Thus, in the language 
of the most philosophic of American historians, 
" the discoverer of the Mississippi slept beneath its 
waters. He had crossed the greater part of the con- 
tinent in search of gold, and found nothing so remark- 
able as his burial place!" 

This romantic expedition furnishes, in its details, 
one of the most interesting chapters in American his- 
tory; and, in its whole inception, progress and denoue- 
ment, appears more like a creation of fancy than a 
series of events in actual life. The authenticity and 
correctness of the accounts concerning it, are, however, 
well established; and we are justified in considering it 
the prologue, as well as the first period, of South- 
western History. 

II. By this Expedition, — which is known in her 
annals as " The Conquest of Florida" — Spain consid- 
ered that she had acquired a right to the whole North 
American Continent. Her attempts to take possession 
of it were, however, few and far between. They were 
principally confined to the settlement of East Florida, 
and were interrupted by the interference of France, 
whose emissaries, in the long period from 1562 to 
1698 — which we shall denominate the second era of 
Southwestern History, — had explored the Mississippi 
River, taken possession of the country under the name 



26 ORATIONS. 

of Louisiana, and had pushed their way as missiona- 
ries and traders among most of the native tribes of 
the interior. In the latter part of this period, occur- 
red the celebrated expedition of Lasalle, into the ter- 
ritory now the Eepublic of Texas, by virtue of which, 
our government long subsequently laid claim to the 
soil, based upon the French right, as far as the Rio 
del Norte. The correspondence, which ensued be- 
tween Mr. Adams, our then Secretary of State, and 
M. De Onis, the Spanish minister, gives the general 
outline of this ill-starred expedition, which in its de- 
tails was well nigh as ronmntic as that of De Soto. 
The incidents of this period constitute an important 
part of Southwestern history, but as they have been 
generally recorded, we need not farther allude to them, 
than to say that in 1693, Spain took possession of 
West Florida, laid the foundation of Pensacola, and 
established a brisk trade with the Alabamon and 
Chickasaw Indians. 

III. The third general division of Southwestern 
History extends from 1698 to 1768, a period of seventy 
years. It is the era of French colonization and. settle- 
ments; and, while it is the most interesting and im- 
portant, is that portion of our history of which least 
is known. The materials for a correct account, al- 
though they exist in the rare volumes of a foreign 
tongue, are, however, abundant and accessible. From 
them it appears that this period is naturally subdi- 
vided into four j)arts : 

( 1. The first extends from 1698 to 1713. During this 
time, Iberville, an officer of the King of France, un- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 27 

der the direction of his monarch, who was anxious to 
reduce Louisiana into possession, bought out a colony 
of some three hundred individuals, and, in 1699, made 
settlements upon Dau})hin Island, in the present 
limits of Alabama, and at the Bay of Biloxi, now in. 
the State of Mississippi. He immediately commenced 
an intercourse with the natives of the interior — who 
consisted, he found, of numerous tribes calling them- 
selves, Alibamons, Choctaw^s, Mobiles, Chickasaws, 
&c. ; and who had already been visited by traders and 
missionaries, from the Sjmniards in Florida, and the 
English in Carolina. After building a fort upon the 
Mississippi Eiver, he returned to France, leaving his 
brother, Bienville, Governor of the colony. He, in 
1702, built a fort upon Mobile Bay, a few miles below 
the site of our present flourishing emporium, and re- 
moved to it the head-quarters of the colony — wdiere it 
remained until 1711, when in consequence of an in- 
undation in the spring, it was removed to the pre- 
sent site of the city, and Fort Louis, whose ruins are 
yet to be seen, w^as built. Throughout the whole of 
this period, the colonists w^ere engaged in violent wars 
with the neighboring tribes, — particularly the Aliba- 
mons; and, in the latter part of it, with the English 
of Carolina, — the parent countries at that time being 
.at war. They suffered frequently from disease; and 
in 1705, the dread visitant, which has recently made 
such terrible havoc upon the same devoted spot, made 
its first appearance in the colony, and carried off' tliir- 
ty-jftve of the inhabitants. Nevertheless, the colonists 
carried on a considerable trade with the natives, in 



i 



28 ORATIONS. 

peltries and furs, wliicli they sent to France. To 
agriculture they paid little or no attention. The pop- 
ulation of the colony, which at the close of this period 
resided principally at Mobile and on Dauphin Island, 

v^ amounted to three hundred and eighty individuals. 

2. The second subdivision of the period of French 
colonization and government in the Southwest, em- 
braces but four years, but is full of interesting adven- 
ture. In 1713, the officers of Crozat, a rich merchant 
of Paris, to whom the King had given a charter of the 
Colony, took possession; and Lamotte Cadillac be- 
came Grovernor. Under this charter, the population 
was greatly increased by emigration from France, and 
military j)osts were established along the banks of the 
^Mississippi and in the interior. In 1714, a military 
, ,_/^ establishment, called Fort Toulouse, with a colonial 
settlement, was made uj)on the head waters of the 
Alabama, at the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoo- 
sa, near which Fort Jackson was erected in 1812, by 
the American troops. Some of the evidences of this 
settlement may yet be found, though they who built, 
like the native tribe who assisted — then called " the 

y Alibamons" — have long since passed away. Several 

/ other establishments were, about the same time, made 

/ in the interior of this State and of Mississippi. An 

old map locates one upon the Tombeckbe, another 

upon the head waters of the Yazoo, and a third upon 

the Tennessee, then called the Cherokee river. 

Crozat, disappointed in his hopes of profit from 
commerce with the Indians, and harassed by the con- 
tinual wars which he was compelled to carry on with 



THE SOUTHWEST. 29 

them, particularly against the Chickasaws — in 1717 
surrendered his charter to the King. He left the 
colony but little improved, save by the increase of 
j)opulation, which now amounted to near eight hun- 
dred inhabitants. 

3. From 1718 to 1732 — a period of fourteen years 
— the colony was under the government of a chartered 
association called the " Western Company/' and Bien- 
ville was reinstated as Governor, much to the delight 
of the inhabitants. This period is marked by a great in- 
crease of population; an extension of settlements into 
Louisiana and Mississippi ; the foundation of New 
Orleans ; a violent Avar with the Spanish in West 
Florida; the capture of Pensacola; an attack by the 
^--^^:v^Spaniards upon Dauphin Island and Mobile; the di- 
vision >f the country into nine ecclesiastical districts, 
for the purposes of the Roman Catholic religion, which 
was exclusively established; the dissemination of 
priests and friars among all the Indian tribes; the first 
serious attention to agriculture, by the colonists, in 
the cultivation of indigo, rice and tobacco; the intro- 
duction of large numbers of slaves brought from the 
coast of Africa; numerous bloody wars among the In- 
dian tribes; a combination of several of these tribes 
against the colonists ; and finally, tlie terrible and 
relentless destruction of tlie once powerful and almost 
semi-civilized tribe of the Natchez, by Perrier. who in 
1726 had succeeded Bienville as Governor. We can 
but thus barely allude to all these importart incidents. 
One or Iano evtiiits of a less general character may serve 
to show the condition and s])irit of affairs in the colony. 



30 ORATIONS. 

In 1722, the colony at Fort Toulouse, upon the 
head waters of the Alabama, was disturbed by a mu- 
tiny among the soldiers. Twenty-six rose in arms 
against Marchand, the commander, and forcing their 
way out of the fort, departed for the English settle- 
ments in Carolina. Villemont, the second in com- 
mand, immediately collected a large force of the Ali- 
bamon Indians, and, with them and the balance of the 
troo23s, 23ursued the fugitives. They were overtaken 
near the Chattahooche river, and, after a brief but 
bloody engagement, were, with the exception of eight 
prisoners, mercilessly massacred. These prisoners 
were taken back to the Fort, and thence to Mobile, 
where they were publicly executed. One of them, be- 
longing to a corps of hired Swiss, was put to death 
according to their bloody military rules. He was 
placed alive in a coffin, and his body was sawed in two 
with a cross-cut saw. 

Another incident which occurred during this period, 
casts a softening shadow of romance over the rude life 
of the colonists, and would afford, in connection with 
the time, the groundwork for a highly imaginative 
novel. 

Among a company of German colonists, who arrived 
at Mobile, in 1721, there came a female adventurer, of 
great personal beauty, high accomplishments, and evi- 
dently possessed of much wealth. It was generally 
believed, as she herself represented, that she was the 
daughter of the Duke of Wolfenbuttle, and the wife 
of the Czarowitz Alexius Peter, the only son of Peter 
the G-reat, and that being cruelly treated by her hus- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 31 

band, she had fled from him, for refuge in these far 
colonies, while he represented that she was dead. This 
belief was conlirmed by the Chevalier d'Anbant, who 
having seen the princess at St. Petorsbmyh, recognized 
her features in the new comer; and, upon the strength 
of his opinion, formed a matrimonial alliance with the 
repudiated wife. After many years' residence in the 
colony, with all the style of a court, — the Chevalier 
went to Paris with his princess. Here, for some time, 
her story obtained general credit, and it was not till 
after the death of her husband, that she was discov- 
ered to be an impostor. It was now proved that the 
pretended arch-duchcss was only an humble female, 
who, having been attached to the wardrobe of the 
princess of Eussia, had robbed lier of large quantities 
of jewelry and gold, and had fled to America. By a 
similarity of appearance with her mistress, she im- 
posed upon the credulity of a young officer, who lived 
in splendor upor her ill-gotten wealth, and died in 
blissful ignorance of the truth of her history. 

The '^Western Company" in 1732, surrendered 
their charter to the king. A few years previously they 
had removed the seat of government to New Orleans, 
though the principal business was yet transacted at 
Mobile. The population of the colony now amounted 
to over five thousand white inhabitants and two thou- 
sand slaves. 

4. The fourth and last period of French govern- 
ment in the Southwest extends from 1732 to 1768, 
when France became dispossessed of every inch of 
ground in North America, The most interesting inci- 



32 ORATIONS. 

dent of the first j^art of this era, is an expedition made 
against the Chickasaw Indians, by Bienville, who had 
been re-appointed Governor by the King. These In- 
dians had made many hostile depredations upon the 
settlements around Mobile, and upon the Mississippi, 
and had refused to deliver up a party of the Natchez, 
who, after the massacre, had taken refuge among them. 
Determining to punish their audacity, and to quell 
them for all future time, Bienville, in the spring of 
1736, left Mobile with an army of fifteen hundred 
troops, with all the implements and provisions of war. 
The greater ptart of the forces ascended the river upon 
its western bank. The baggage, artillery and pro- 
visions were transported in boats. On the twentieth 
of April, he reached a fort, which he had caused to be 
built a short time before, on the west bank of the 
Tombeckbe river, two hundred and fifty miles above 
Mobile, and to which the appellation of "Fort Tom- 
beckbe" had been given. Here he was joined by 
twelve hundred Choctaw warriors, who had been en- 
gaged for the expedition. With this formidable army, 
he was twenty days ascending the Tombeckbe, to the 
point at which Cotton Gin Port now stands. Here, 
finding his artillery difficult of transportation, and 
deeming it unnecessary, he erected a temporary forti- 
fication, in which he placed it with a company of sol- 
diers. The village, in which the Chickasaws were 
collected, was distant twenty miles. This Bienville 
reached on the morning of the twenty-sixth of May, 
and immediately invested. It "was found to be en- 
tirely surrounded by strong pallisades, constructed of 



THE SOUTHWEST. 33 

large trees, and was filled by an immense number of 
warriors. From several English flags, displayed over 
the village, evidence was given that the Chickasaws 
were headed by traders from Carolina. An immediate 
assault was made upon the fortifications, by the whole 
aiTQy ; but they were found impregnable. Though the 
most desperate valor was exhibited by the troops, and 
though they made repeated attempts to storm particular 
points, which seemed most exposed, they were continu- 
ally repulsed with great loss. The well directed fire 
of the besieged mowed down the assailants, and, 
amidst their war-cries and firing, they jeered them with 
impotency and cowardice. After continuing his efforts 
until the close of the day, and finding them all in- 
effectual, Bienville, with thirty killed — among whom 
were four of his principal ofiScers — and over seventy 
badly wounded, commenced a hasty retreat. This he 
continued for three miles, and encamped for the night. 
The next day he returned to his fortifications upon the 
Tombeckbe. His Clioctaw allies here abandoned him; 
and, embarking his troops upon his boats, he floated 
down the river to Mobile. Before embarking however, 
he threw his cannon into the Tombeckbe. Some of 
these were found a few years since, near Cotton Gin, 
and were said by the pseudo-literati of Mississippi — 
who, in their wisdom, perhaps had never heard of 
Bienville, — to be relics of De Soto's expedition ! 

This unfortunate campaign, in its whole conduct 
and termination, partakes largely of the spirit of ro- 
mance. One, who, like your speaker, has ascended the 
sinuous windings of the Tombeckbe, or traveled 



34 ORATIONS. 

through the quiet forests and blooming prairies of 
upper Mississippi, can scarcely realize that their peace- 
ful solitudes have ever been broken by scenes like these. 
And yet, if some day, as he is riding through those 
regions, he will throw his bridle upon the neck of his 
horse, and look around him, he will find vistages of the 
Frenchman's Visit visible in more places than one. 

After Bienville's return from this expedition, he 
applied himself/ for some years, to the improvement 
of the colony, in agriculture and commerce with the 
West Indies. In 1740 however, he prepared another 
and a more powerful expedition against the Chicka- 
saws. With it he ascended the Mississippi river and 
the Yazoo, and succeeded in bringing them to terms. 
He then resigned the Governorship of the Colony, and 
returned to France. 

The remainder of this period of French history, is 
replete with interesting details. Suffice it to say, tliat 
under the government, first, of the Marquis of Vau- 
dreuil, and then, of General Kelerec, the colony contin- 
ued to flourish to an extent, previously unprecedented: 
the cultivation of the sugar cane was commenced in 
1751; and some attention paid even to those arts 
which refine and embellish life. 

France being worsted in the war, which she had 
been carrying on with England, by a secret treaty in 
1762, ceded all her possessions west of the Mississippi, 
with New Orleans, to the crown of Spain; and in the 
next year all the balance to the King of England. 
She thus became dispossessed of all her right to the soil 
of North America; though she continued in possession 



THE SOUTHWEST. 35 

of Western Louisiana, until 1768, when the Spanish 
officers took possession. 

IV. The fourth general division of Southwestern His- 
tory may be said to extend tlirouo'h a period of thirty- 
nine years — from 1764 to 1803 — when Louisiana passed 
into the possession of the United States. Of this 
period I have time barely to say tliat it is divided into 
three distinct parts : the one extending to 1783, and 
embracing the British Government in West Florida, 
and over the whole of that j)art of the jjresv^nt States 
of Alabama and Mississippi, south of the tiiirty-third 
degree of north latitude; — another com]. rising the 
Spanish government of Louisiana during the whole 
period, and of West Florida from 1782; and the third, 
commencing in 1783, of the United States, over all 
the country east of the Mississippi, and north of the 
thirty-first degree of latitude. This era is teeming with 
rich historic materials, whether we look to those 
events which go to the building of States, or to those 
lesser things which serve to illustrate man in his 
individual and social capacity. I cannot linger with 
them but must proceed to the fifth period of our liis- 
tory. 

V. This extends from 1803 to 1819— when the last 
of the States, now composing the Southwest, passed 
into the Federal sisterhood. It is, perhaps, as far as 
we are concerned, the most interestin«? era of om* 
history : embracing, as it does, the first settlement of 
this vast region by tlie pioneers of the population who 
now possess it, — the thrilling incidents of the ''Last 
War," with the powei-ful Indian tribes of our Stat(^ — 



36 ORATIONS. 

with the Spaniards in West Florida, and with the 
British before Mobile and New Orleans ; and the estab- 
lishment of those municipal institutions, under whose 
benign protection we live, and in the blessed light of 
whose influence we are this day assembled. An ex- 
amination of this period will show us, what I believe is 
most generally overlooked, that the foundations of our 
own State particularly, were not effected by the tran- 
quil course of peaceful emigration, but were wrought 
and consecrated through a bitter sacrament of blood. 
Such an examination is not now permitted. The 
materials for a correct history of their time have never 
been collected. You will find them in the scattered 
records of our country, and among the ]3erishing tra- 
ditions of our older inhabitants. In the Western 
States they have set us an example, in regard to this 
matter, which we should patriotically imitate. What 
Flint, Hall, Drake, Marshall, Butler, and many others 
have done for the States bordering upon the Ohio — at 
the same time that they have pursued honest and 
reputable vocations — among which the present temper 
of these Hesperian longitudes, in the superlative pos- 
session of that species of wisdom which belonged to the 
friends of Job, does not seem to consider exclusively 
J.iterary occupations, — will not some of you. Gentlemen, 
in your hours of recreation in after life from more 
practical purposes, perform for the Southwest ? 

Only two circumstances in this period, will your 
time permit me to mention. Printing — which always 
marks an e2:)0ch in the histoiy of a State — was com- 
menced in Mississippi, by the publication of a news- 



--^^ THE SOUTHWEST. 37 

paper at Natchez, in 1809. The first paper ever 
printed in Ahibama, was, the " Madison Gazette, " 
started in Huntsville in 1812. Another was lje»^'un at 
St.. Stephens, in 1816, by Thomas Eastin. It was 
not inappropriately called '^ The Halcyon," — and like 
its fabled prototype, no doubt, had much influence in 
softening the rude turbulence of the times. 

The other circumstance, to which I allude, consti- 
tutes an interesting chapter in the history of our own 
State; and, as it has never been written, and is, in all 
its features, tinctured with the attractiveness of ro- 
mance, I will briefly present it to your view. I mean 
the history of the French Colony, which settled in 
- Marengo, in 1817... 

The overthrow of Napoleon was followed by the 
expatriation of many thousands of those who had 
been the most conspicious maintainers of his colossal 
power. Of these a large number came to the United 
States. Among them were generals, wlio had won 
laurels in the proudest fields of European valor, and 
assisted in the dethronement and coronation of monarch s 
over millions of subjects; and ladies who had figured 
in the voluptuous drawing rooms of St. Cloud, and 
glittered in the smiles and favor of Josephine and of 
Marie Antoinette. With the irrepressible enthusiasm of 
their nation, they thought to find, in the quietude and 
peace of our boundless forests, an Arcadian exchange 
for the aristocratical establishments and gilded saloons 
of Paris. They wished to dwell together, and to form a 
miniature republic of their own, subject however to the 
same laws as other citizens of the Union. Accordiiiply 



38 ORATIONS. 

they petitioned Congress^ to grant them a portion of 
the public domain in the Southwest. This was done 
by an act of March the 3d, 1817, granting to them 
four townships of land, to be selected by them som^e- 
where in the territory of Alabama. The conditions of 
the grant were that the emigrants should cultivate 
the Vine upon one acre in each quarter section, and 
the Olive upon another other ; and at the end of four- 
teen years should pay the General Government two 
dollars an acre, for a fee-simple title to the land. 
Among the grantees were Marshal Grouchy, the hero 
of Linden, and the present Minister of War for France ; 
General Lefebvre Desnouettes, Lieutenant General, 
who had distinguished himself in all the great 
battles of Napoleon; General Count Clausel, General 
Count Real, the two Generals L'AUemand, and Gen- 
erals Yandamme, Lakanal, Penniers, and Garnier 
de Saintes; with a number of other subordinate officers, 
whose names are among the composing stars of that 
galaxy of greatness which encircled the " Sun of the 
Sleepless ! " Under the direction of these men, the 
location of the colony was made upon the Tombeckbe 
river, in what is now the county of Marengo. During 
the year, emigrants, to near the number of four hun- 
dred, Pirrived, and took possession of the soil — which 
was portioned among them by lottery. They however 
did not disperse to any great extent though the 
country, but principally settled down in two villages ; 
the one called Demopolis, upon the site where the 
village with the same name now stands; and the other 
called Eaglesville, situated upon the Black Warrior 



THE SOUTHWEST. 39 

river, a short distance above Demopolis. In this hitter 
village several of the distinguished men I have named 
resided. Upon the Colony they bestowed the name of 
Marengo, which is still preserved in the county. Other 
relics of their nomenclature, — drawn, similarly, from 
battles in which some of them had been distinguished 
— are to be found in the villages of Linden and Areola. 
In the spring, after their emigration, they proceeded 
to the cultivartion of the soil, and were soon settled ,7 
down in the occupations of agricultural life. 

A more singular spectacle than the one thus presen- 
ted is rarely to be found in the leaves of history. It 
is true that Cincinnatus, when he had saved Rome 
from the irruptions of her foes, returned to the plough 
he had abandoned. But here vv^e have instances of 
men, who had been actors in scenes, which, in militai y 
magnifiicence, far transcended the wildest imaginings 
of the Roman — turning from the theater of their for- 
mer triumphs, and exchanging the sword for the 
plough-share, and the spear for the pruning hook. In 
moral dignity, indeed, the advantage is all in favor of 
the ancient — for these are driven from their country 
by com2)ulsion, — but in other respects the parallel is 
not unequal. Who, that would have looked upon'"^ 
Marshal Grouchy, or General Lefebvre, as, dre.ssed in 
their plain rustic habiliments, — the straw hat, the 
homespun coat, the brogan shoes — they drove the 
plough in the open field, or wielded the axe in tl.«' 
new-ground clearing, would, if unacquainted with 
their history, have dreamed that those farmer-lookin^'; 
men had sat in the councils of monarchs, and hvA 



40 ORATIONS. 

headed miglity armies in the fields of the sternest strife 
the world has ever seen ? ^' Do yoii know. Sir" — said a 
citizen to a traveller, who in 1819, was passing the 
road from Areola to Eaglesville, — '^ Do you know, Sir, 
who is that fine looking man, who just ferried you 
across the creek ?" ''No ! Who is he ! " — was the 
reply. " That Sir, " said the citizen, '' is the Officer 
who commanded Napoleon's advanced guard when he 
returned from Elba ! '' This was Col. Eaoul, now a 
General in France. 

G-reat as in this contrast, it was perhaps greater 
v>^ith the female part of the colonists. Here, dwelling 
in cabins, and engaged in humble attention to the spin- 
ning wheel and the loom, or handling the weeding-hoe, 
and the rake, in their little gardens, were matrons and 
maidens, who had been born to proud titles and high 
estates, afed who had moved as stars of particular ad- 
oration, amid the fashion and refinement and imperial 
display of the Court of Versailles. And yet, — to their 
honor be it said — notwithstanding the rustic and ill- 
proportioned circumstances around them, — they did 
not appear dispirited or miserable. Nothing of " angels 
ruined/' was visible in their condition. They were con- 
tented — smiling — ^happy. As cultivated women al- 
ways may, they diffused around them, and over the 
\ restless feelings of their sterner relatives, the softening 
graces of the heart, and that intellectual glow which, 
as^penser has said of the retired beauty of an English 
girl,\ 

" Makes a sunshine in the shady ])lace . 

But not the least amusino: as well as sinscular cir- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 41 

cumstances, to which these French colonists were ex- 
posed, arose from their connection with the adjacent 
American inhabitants. Who can think of the celebra- 
ted officers I have named, being drilled and mustered 
by one of our ordinary militia captains, and not feel 
emotions of the supremely ridiculous? And yet such, 
I am credibly informed, was frequently the case! 
Many amusing incidents resulted from their ignorance 
of our language. One, not unworthy of ]jreservation, 
was this : An officer of the colony became engaged in 
a fight with a citizen of one of our villages. They 
used only the weapons which nature had given them. 
The Frenchman, getting the worst of the battle, de- 
sired to surrender according to the ordinary signal in 
such cases. But he could not think of the word 
"Enough!" The only phrase he could recall, which he 
had ever heard upon such occasions, was the word 
" Hurra!" This he continued to shout, until the bye- 
standers, guessing his meaning, removed his antago- 
nist. 

-^-^or two or three years, the colonists appeared pros- 
perous and happy, and seemed likely to realize those 
visions of the pastoral state, — so sweetly sung by the 
Mantuan bard, and which they had caught from the 
pages of Chateaubriand and Rousseau. But "achange 
came o'er the spirit of their dream. " The country was 
found unsuited to the cultivation of the Vine and the 
Olive. The restless spirits of the leaders, wliicli had 
been formed and tutored to act a part in those games 
which loosen thrones and crack the sinews of wliole na- 
tions, could not be content with the quiet circumfer- 



42 ORATIONS. 

ence of their backwoods home, in an age of startling 
incidents, when war was afoot, and the far vibrations 
of its stormy music, were heard, like the Macedonian 
invitation, in their sylvan solitudes. Inducements 
were held out to some of them by the struggling States 
of South America: and the ferryman left his flat, and 
the ploughman his furrow, for posts of honor in the 
army of Bolivar. For some, the decrees of their ban- 
ishment were revoked, and they returned to "la belle 
France," — for which, in their exile, they had felt all the 
maladie du i^ays^ to preside in her senates, or to head 
her armies. Seeing their leaders thus leaving them, 
the emigrants, in large numbers, disposed of their 
lands, and either returned to their native country or 
sought more congenial homes in our Southwestern ci- 
ties. The rights of the soil passed into the hands of a 
few : Congress, at intervals, exempted them from the 
requisitions of the grant, and ultimately included them 
in the provisions of the general pre-emption law of / 
1833. The Colony thus passed away; and though / 
there are many of the original families, at least of their ' 
descendants, yet residing in the county, a stranger 
would in vain look among the black lands and the 
broad cotton fields of Marengo, for the simple ])atches 
upon which the Duke of Dantzic, or Count Clausel 
attempted to cultivate the Olive and the Vine. 

This, is a superficial glance at the French Colony 
in Alabama; and to my mind it presents a picture 
that is tinted with all the hues of poetry. Well has 
the Evil-G-enius of modern song exclaimed, ' Truth 
is strange — stranger than fiction'/ Not in the living 



THE SOUTHWEST. 43 

conceptions of the Wizard of Waveiiy — nor in the 
wilder creations of a Groethe or a Boccaccio, have I 
found aught — with a semblance of jorobability about 
it — which could compare with this singular chapter in 
Southwestern history. Nowhere, but in our own an- 
nals can its parallel be found. 

And here, Gentlemen, it might seem proper that 
we should conclude our glance at these " lights and 
shadows" of Southwestern history. Your attention 
has already been detained too long with this part of 
our Discourse. But there is one branch of our historj^ 
— which, as it pervades the whole, and gives its most 
marked coloring to each seperate period, — cannot be 
omitted in an attempt to portray the character of that 
history, — which it has been my object, upon this occa- 
sion, to do, rather than to give you a mere recital of 
its principal events. I allude to the history of the In- 
dian Tribes, who, until recently, resided within our 
borders. The time will not allow me to enter into its 
examination; but a few general facts, collected from 
the lights furnished us by the expedition of De Soto, 
the intercourse of the French settlers in Louisiana, 
and the subsequent acquaintance of the English and 
Americans, may be stated. 

There can be no doubt that the tribes who inhabited 
;he Southwest, thirty years ago, were the same who 
vere in possesion of it three hundred years before, — 
and had occupied, throughout the time, the same rel- 
ative geographical positions. At the period of their 
first discovery, they were much more numerous than 
at any subsequent date, though they have always been 



44 ORATIONS. 

amongst tlie most powerful of the North American 
tribes. They have ever been distinguished for great 
ferocity of sj^irit^ and have constantly waged among 
themselves, violent and bloody wars. In their institu- 
tions, manners, customs and languages, they had not 
materially changed since their first discovery. Al- 
though there are many tribes mentioned by- various 
writers, as halving resided in this region — I speak of 
that part east of the Mississippi, — yet they were all 
subdivisions of five general tribes, — viz: The Creeks, 
the Cherokees, the Choctaws, the Chickasaws, and 
the Natchez. This latter tribe was, in 1726, as we 
have stated, totally destroyed by the French, and five 
hundred of them sold into slavery in the West Indies. 
(^ The remainj^ four tribes comprised all the other Indi- 
ans resident in this extensive region. The Coosas, 
and the Tallisees ol De Soto, and the Alibamons, Mus- 
cogees, and Tallapoosas of the French and Spanish 
wiiters, were all merged in the Creek confederacy: and 
the Tuscaluza Indians of 1540, and the Mobile, Ten- 
saw and Biloxi tribes of 1700, were but Choctaws 
under a different name. 

Of the numerous and terrible wars, by which the in- 
tercourse of these tribes with the whites has ever been 
marked, and which consequently gives to our history 
one of its strongest features of peculiarity — it is impos- 
sible now even to make mention. They diffuse along 
all the lines of our progress the shadows and stains of 
blood : from the battle of Chicaca, three centuries ago, 
to the burning of St. Rosalie, two centuries after, 
from the butchery of Fort Loudon upon the Tennessee, 



THE BOUTUWEST. 45 

in 1760, to the Massacre of Fort Mimins upon the 
Tombeckbe, in lS\2il<{jSj 

The historian who shall record these things, in connec- 
tion with the jjeculiar characteristics of the several, 
tribes, in a manner at all proportioned to the subject, 
will, it seems to me, furnish as interesting and instruc- 
tive a volume as has ever been written. There is room 
for the w^ildest romantic descriptions, as well as the 
most profound philosophical research. Vapid and un- 
meaning declamations will do no good. We want es- 
tablished lacts and reasonable deductions. We want 
a picture of the institutions, religious, political and 
social; of the manners and customs, military and paci- 
fic; of the languages, in their form and construction — 
of these several tribes. But he, who would give us 
such a picture, must begin the task soon. The evi- 
dences of these things are daily becoming more indis- 
tinct. " Like the leaves of the sycamore, when the 
wind of w^nter is blowing," — to use the fine simile of 
a Choctaw orator, — " the Indians are passing away, 
and the white 23eople will soon know no more of them, 
than they do of those deep caves out of which they had 
their origin!" These tribes have already passed from 
our soil. It therefore behooves us to be the more active 
to collect the memorials of their history. It will be, 
not merely the sketches of a singular })eo})le, but will 
possess the additional value of being insei)erably inter- 
woven -wdth our own history, from its earliest era down 
almost to the present day. 

I have now, Gentlemen, concluded such a view of 
the History of our section of the Union, as I deemed 



46 ORATIONS. 

not inappropriate for the present occasion. In the in- 
vestigation, I am conscious that I have been dull and 
tedious, and yet, I feel satisfied that you will be better 
pleased with what I have said, than if I had detained 
you with the mere effervescence of rhetoric and fancy — 
with those wind-blown extravagances, which rise upon 
the surface of thought — the glittering existences of a 
minute, and then j)ass away, justifying you in exclaim- 
ing, with Macbeth, 

" Earth hatli its bubbles as the waters have, 
And these are of them !" 

There are many lessons which such a survey of our 
history forces upon the mind. Not the least of these 
is the duty of our educated citizens, to develope and 
collect its materials. This duty will fall with its 
strongest obligations, upon you. Gentlemen, who have 
been born and educated within our borders. Although 
you may never become exclusively devoted to Letters, 
you will yet have frequent opportunities to discharge 
this duty — a duty which will be as interesting and 
agreeable, as it will be honorable to yourselves. By 
so doing you will best repay to the State, the favors 
which she has bestowed upon you, in the establish- 
ment of high institutions of learning; and will diffuse 
around you, like the beautiful magnolia trees of our 
southern forests, a hallowing fragrance, and the influ- 
ence of an example, which will beautify and adorn the 
community in which you may reside. 

But, Gentlemen, perhaps the first and most inter- 
esting duty of a young man, in entering upon life, is 
to understand properly, the character of the communi- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 47 

ty in which he is to live. With this belief, it was my 
intention to hiive addressed you, to-day, principally 
upon some of the mental and moral characteristics of 
that section of the Union of which you are citizens, 
and into whose bosom you are shortly to go as the 
apostles of her first Literary Institution. My remem- 
brance of collegiate life tells me, that the student is 
usually better versed in the social economy of the an- 
cient time and States, than in that of his own period 
and country. He can tell you more of the manners 
and customs, the sentiments and feelings, the institu- 
tions and intercourse, of " the world's grey fathers," 
than he can of his own immediate society. Many a 
young man passes through a University, and comes 
out into life, with the music of Demosthenes ringing 
in his ears, the morals of Seneca impressed upon his 
heart, and the philosophy of Epictetus learned by rote, 
who cannot tell what is the actual character of his 
own country — what is the condition and impulses of 
the people about him, — and what are the causes, re- 
mote and immediate, which produce that condition, 
and form and fashion that character. Such a youth I 
should describe in the language of Pope : 

" A bookful blockhead, ignorantly read, 
With loads of learned lumber in his head !" 

If ancient philosophy is at all valuable, it is principal-- 
ly so, because it may be applied to the illustration and 
improvement of our own times, — because it can guide 
us in the understanding and formation of our own 
manners and institutions. It should be a hand-maid 



48 ORATIONS. 

and not a usurper — an index and not a goal ! Our own 
age — our own country — our own society — this should 
be the ultimate — indeed the pervading — view and ob- 
ject of all our acquirements. This, only, makes philoso- 
j)hy practical — this, only, draws the distinction between 
true learning, and the Questiones Quodliheticce of the 
Middle Ages, — beween the valuable instructions of a 
Stewart and a Say, and the wild theories of a Thomas 
Aquinas or a Duns Scotus. 

It is scarcely necessary, then, to repeat, Gentlemen, 
that one of the subjects most worthy of your calm and 
philosophical attention, is the Moral and Intellectual 
Character of the Southwest. With this estimation, I 
had intended, as I have already said, to have addressed 
you at some length upon this topic : but the extent, 
to which you have been detained with the first part of 
our Discourse, precludes the ]30ssibility of such a view. 
I must content myself with general allusions to some 
of the principal features of the subject. Such a com-se, 
if it subserves no other end, Avill at least be directory to 
the vast field of research and reflection, which opens 
on the mind. 

The character of a country is the aggregated charac- 
ters of its individual citizens. If these are, in the main, 
intelligent, virtuous, liberal, industrious, hos23itable, 
and refined, such may be said to be the general charac- 
ter of their community. In proportion as individuals 
of different qualities enter into the composition of so- 
ciety — so it becomes, in its general tone, less pure and 
elevated. Thus it will be seen that to judge exactly 
of the character of a country, we should know the 



THE SOUTHWEST. 49 

characteristics of its several inhabitants. But it is im- 
possible in a community of any extent, to form an 
opinion in this way. Resort must be had to other and 
more convenient methods. The best of tliese is to ex- 
amine those general causes which operate to produce 
and modify the character of eveiy community. This 
is the plan we propose to pursue in examining the 
Moral and Intellectual Character of the Southwest. 
Her peculiarities only, are those to which we will allude. 
That these peculiarities are numerous, and very promi- 
nent, we are daily reminded by the Press in other sec- 
tions of the Union. Foreign travelers constantly 
speak of the people of the Southwest as possessing 
many distinctive traits. Whenever a resident of the 
other States — particularly from New England — comes 
among us, he finds many phases and features of socie- 
ty, which are to him not only novel but wonderful: 
and at the same time ho affords to us a specimen of a 
community varying essentially in its tone, its temper, 
its feelings, and even, to some extent, in its pronuncia- 
tion, from our own. This difference ought not to be a 
source of wonder to a reflecting mind. Even a super- 
ficial notice of the history of the human race, shows us 
that man, in his intellectual and moral attributes, is 
ever modified by the circumstances around him. It is 
therefore not more surprising that the extremes of our 
confederacy should vary in their social, than in their 
physical, conditions, if we consider tliat the one is an 
old and the other a new community. That the pecu- 
liarities, which exist in our case, and which are not al- 
ways creditable to us ; which indeed have given us a 



50 ORATIONS. 

character abroad, strangely blending many of the 
highest virtues with the ruder vices of social life — can 
be traced, in the main, to circumstances inevitably in- 
cident to our condition, I think clearly capable of de- 
monstration. It is a proud consolation, too, that 
those causes, which have produced the ruder and less 
ennobling features of our character, are, by the j)ro- 
gress of time and the operation of better influences, 
already passing from existence. Let us now take a 
glance at some of these causes. 

An individual, who wished properly to understand 
the character of a community, should examine first, 
how, and of what materials, that community was form- 
ed. This is particularly right where it is recent in its 
origin. Now, in the case of the Southwest, let us see 
how its society was formed, and what are its compo- 
nent parts. But a few years ago, the greater portion 
of this vast region — of whose beauties and capacities 
for the purposes of social man, I have already spoken, 
— was an uncultivated wilderness, untenanted save by 
ignorant and ferocious barbarians. The tide of civili- 
zed population, however, some thirty years since, be- 
gan to sweep through its forests. Its progress, at first, 
was slow and resisted hj the primitive inhabitants. 
The white men consequently, who sought homes in its 
bosom, like the pioneers of every new country, were ad- 
venturous and daring spirits, and the manner of life, 
which they were forced to lead, was, in a great mea- 
sure, lawless, self-dependent, and semi-barbarous. But, 
in a little while, the flow of population became more 
broad and rapid. Glowing accounts of the natural ad- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 51 

vantages of the region, attracted emigrants from every 
section of the Union. The Carolinian, the Georgian, 
the Virginian, the inhabitants of the Middle and Wes- 
tern States, and the New Englander, all poured, with 
their families, into this vast and fertile field, with un- 
precedented rapidity. They came — in the phrase of 
the day — for the purpose of making fortunes; and 
were accordingly ^'business men." Without much re- 
ference to each other, they settled down, wherever con- 
venience or the hope of profit seemed to advise; and 
went to the laudable business of making laws and for- 
tunes. If to this we add a considerable amount of for- 
eign emigration, we have a correct idea of how the 
Southwestern States, particularly Mississippi and Ala- 
bama, were filled with their present population. From 
such materials, under such circumstances, what kind 
of a character is it rational to suppose that such a com- 
munity would possess.^ The purposes for which they 
have emigrated warrant that they will, generally, be 
industrious and practical. They have not left their 
homes to seek the pleasures and embellishments of life. 
Profit — that profit which comes from laborious exer- 
tion — is their main object. Those virtues which follow 
in the train of industry — like sparkles in the wake of a 
ship — ^frugality, economy, honesty — must be theirs. 
Hospitality — the chief of social virtues— is taught 
them by the necessities of their situation. The same 
cause teaches them self-reliance — and independence of 
spirit is its consequence. Intercourse, under such cir- 
cumstances, must be free, unceremonious, and liberal 



52 OEATIONS. 

All being upon an equality, there can be notbing like 
aristocracy in society 

These excellences are, however, qualified by atten- 
dant evils. Koughness of manner; an improper haugh- 
tiness of sj^irit, producing frequently violence and 
crime; a disregard of the laws and of any restraint; 
neglect of the charities and courtesies of social life, as 
effeminate and unbecoming; and a general deteriora- 
tion of the moral feelings, are, in a new and backwoods 
community, most usually, the shadows of the virtues 
I have named. And yet, in the Southwest, their devel- 
opment has been greatly prevented by the goodness 
and variety of the materials out of which its society 
was comj)osed. The emigrants, coming from every 
section of the Union, brought with them, and placed 
in conflict, that pride of home, with its improvements, 
and that desire to excel which belongs to the inhabi- 
tants of the several States. A competition for excel- 
lence, being thus produced, tends to suppress the vices, 
and to develope and keep alive the virtues, of the com- 
munity. In such a state of society, it is not to be ex- 
pected that literature or the fine arts should have a 
home. These, while they improve the whole structure, 
are but its embellishments. The architecture of society 
must be first strong and useful: the Doric and the Go- 
thic are its emblematic orders ! Refinement and ele- 
gance belong to more advanced stages: and it is then 
that the graceful Ionic, and the ornate Corinthian — fit 
metaphors of the beautifying branches of learning — 
blend their sweet proportions with the more solid parts 



THE SOUTHWEST. 53 

of the edifice. To speak less figuratively, new commu- 
nities pay more attention to those parts of knowledge 
which supply and relieve their wants; which are i)ure- 
ly practical in their nature; than to those branches 
which please the fancy or gratify the heart. Such 
has been the course and character of the Southwest: 
and it is clearly referable, I think, to the general cau- 
ses, I have indicated. 

The character, thus drawn, applies more propeidy to 
the Southwest, as it was ten years ago, than is at pre- 
sent: but as it is the one yet entertained abroad, to a 
great extent, I have thought proper to show it, and its 
producing causes. The evils of a very early state of 
society have measurably passed from among us. 
Their effects to some extent yet linger, but are daily 
diminishing, while the beneficial effects of emigi'ation 
exist in their full force. One of these, secondary how- 
ever in importance, is the purity and correctness with 
which the English language is spoken among us. I be- 
lieve there is no part of the world, — not even London 
— in which our mother tongue is pronounced with more 
accuracy than in the Southwest. No where are there 
fewer provincialisms. This results from the gi*eat and 
continual admixture of population, from all parts of 
the Union. Each one acts as a check and a corrective 
upon his neighbor; and thus the " well of English" is 
kept pure and undefiled. 

Another good and enduring operation which this, 
our primitive state, has had upon our character, is its 
effect upon the yeomanry of our land. It has genera- 
ted an honest, hardy, and patriotic population, who 



54 ORATIONS. 

may be fitly described in the language Halleck has 
applied to the people of Connecticut : 

" A stubborn race, flattering and fearing none — 
They love their land because it is their own, 

And scorn to give aught other reason why ; 
Would shake hands with a king upon his throne, 

And think it kindness to his majesty !' 

This leads us directly to the consideration of another 
general cause, which has had an important operation, 
in forming the character the Southwest has hitherto 
maintained; and which must have a j^reponderating 
influence, in all future time, upon its mental and moral 
development and direction. I refer to the Agricultural 
pursuits of its inhabitants. Such is the physical con- 
formation of our region; such its advantages over the 
rest of the world for the production of the gi'eat staples 
of commerce and manufactures; and such its geographi- 
cal, and, I may add, in a kindred sense, its mercantile 
position; that il must always be looked to and employed 
as a '^ growing country." Of the political results of 
this inevitable condition I shall now say nothing; but 
in it I see the secret of much of our past, and the as- 
surance of our future, character. Agricultural commu- 
nities have always been distinguished by peculiarities 
resulting from their pursuits. Virgil, in that inimita- 
ble poem — inimitable for its combination of the simple 
with the sublime, the pathetic with the humorous, the 
commonplace with the dignified, and which he was 
seven years in writing and polishing — I mean the 
Georgics — ^has given us a beautiful portraiture of the 
occupations of the husbandman, and their effects upon 



THE SOUTHWEST. 55 

his character. The same subject was previously not 
less sweetly delineated by the Ascroean bard, llesiod, 
in his Opera ct Dies, and the lessons of agriculture 
blended with moral reflections worthy of a Plato or a 
Pythagoras. Hahz, the Persian, at a later day, and 
in a far different country, sang the same sweet anthem, 
in tones not unworthy of his predecessors. 

But the beneficial effects of agricultural pursuits 
upon the mind and morals are not the mere raptures 
of fancy. It is true that poetry throws a dazzling 
veil over many imprefections, and shows us only the 
sunny side of the picture ; yet it holds to reason that 
that occupation, which attaches a man to the soil, 
which gives him a definite idea of property and home, 
which shows him the bountiful rewards of patient 
industry and economy, which leads him not into the 
fever and struggle of vexatious and envious life, must 
spread around him a calm atmosphere of good feelings, 
and cause the genial and ennobling virtues to spring up 
in his heart, like the flowers and the plants in the rich 
fields of his own cultivation. At the same time the 
operation upon the mental faculties is healthful and 
improving. Regular exercise is not more beneficial to 
the body than it is to the intellectual capabilities. 
Mens Sana in sano corpore is a maxim attested by the 
experience of all ages. And yet it is but candid to 
confess that, while the pursuits of the fiirmer thus tend 
to enlarge his intellect — to make it muscular, active, 
and healthful — capable of prolonged and energetic exer- 
tion — they have no direct influence to make him desire 
or seek for extensive acquirements in learning. Prac- 



56 OBATIONS. 

tical information — that kind of knowledge which en- 
ables him to comprehend and cany on his own business 
— is all that he feels to be absolutely necessary. And, 
yet, we may remark, that if the farmer properly appre- 
ciated his own condition, he would find that the whole 
range of natural science would be of immense advan- 
tage to him in his occupation. 

That such has been the influence of agricultural 
pursuits upon the inhabitants of the Southwest, I 
firmly believe. Their situation in a new and unopen- 
ed region has, indeed, prevented a full exhibition of 
these beneficial effects ; but the good spirit has been 
at work, through all their difiiculties, and though 
silent and perhaps unnoticed as the atmosjihere we 
breathe, yet nevertheless like it, has shed a soft and 
humanizing spell over the rudeness of the times. 
That it is not an extravagant fancy to augur well from 
this cause, for our character in future, I am more 
strongly convinced. It is true that the general difiu- 
sion of our population throughout the country, neces- 
sarily incident to the nature of their pursuits, will pre- 
vent the establishment of many large cities, which 
seem to be requisite always for the cultivation of the 
higher refinements and fashions of life. But this in 
itself may be regarded rather as a blessing than an 
evil. With those elegancies and improvements, atten- 
dant upon the collection of individuals in large mas- 
ses, ever come many vices which more than counter- 
balance the good. Some cities will indeed arise upon 
our sea-coast for the purposes of commerce : but the 
general mass of our population, as it will be agricul- 



THE SOUTHWEST. 57 

tural, will consequently be scattered throughout the 
country. Is it therefore unreasonable to suppose that 
they will, in the main, be characterized by those virtues 
which are incidental to an agricultural community — 
by industry, generosity, independence of spirit, hos- 
pitality, patriotism, and generally diffused and prac- 
tical intelligence, if not by a refined and elevated 
literature ? Such men make the best citizens in 
time of peace, and the best soldiers in war. Such 
men are the surest guarantee of the permanency 
and virtue of our republican institutions. Plain and 
unostentatious, they have no desire, as they have no 
respect, for tlie glittering baubles and empty meta- 
phors of monarchial institutions. Domestic in their 
dispositions, firm and patriotic, they are not wafted 
about by those excitements in politics and trade, 
which have so often lashed into tempest the crowded 
and fevered populations of Manchester and Paris. 
They are not only the bones and sinews of a good com- 
munity ; they are its veins, its arteries, which conduct 
the regular and healthful currents of pure vitality 
through the whole body politic. 

Such, Gentlemen, I believe, is a correct view of the 
nature and influence of the pursuits, which, at present 
engage, and must occupy in future, the attention of 
the great mass of our population — composed ae it is, 
not of the dwellers in our towns and villages — not of 
planters who rule over large numbers of slaves, — but 
of the humble and industrious, who are scattered 
everywhere, among our hills and valleys, reaping, 
according to the primal ordinance, the fruits and trea- 



58 ORATIONS. 

sures of the earth. It may seem that I have over- 
rated the number and hnportance of this class of our 
society ; but any one who will travel through the inte- 
rior of our country ; who will follow the " neighbor- 
hood roads/' as they are termed, through all their hum- 
ble windings ; who will go to our muster-grounds, our 
election precincts, our county meeting houses, and 
occasionally to a Methodist Camp meeting, or a Bap- 
tist Association, and will then ask himself where the 
seventeen hundred thousand white inhabitants dwell, 
who at present swell the census of the Southwest, — 
will find that the class, ot which I have spoken, con- 
stitute at least a moiety of our actual population. 
And are not these to be regarded, in estimating the 
present and prospective character of our country ? 

Associated with this subject, and contituting an- 
other general influence, indeed the principal one — 
upon Southwestern character, is that division of society 
which exists throughout the South, and which is de- 
nominated our Peculiar Domestic Institution. The 
present occasion would be inappropriate to enter into 
the discussion of a topic, which has been discreetly 
voted a sealed subject among us. I shall therefore 
only remark, upon its general merits, that I am al- 
ways ready to maintain, at proper times and places, 
that it is an Institution, in itself, naturally, morally, 
and politically right and beneficial. As regards its 
Intellectual and Moral effects, it may not be improper 
to say a few words. Much of that character which is 
peculiar to our section of the Union is traceable to 
this Institution. By producino; two broad and dis- 



THE SOUTHWEST 59 

tinct classes in society, it has generated, upon the part 
of our white inhabituuts, a spirit of superiority and 
self-esteem, a certain aristocracy of feeling, jind a proud 
chivalry of character, which do not elsewhere so gener- 
ally exist. Tliis has always been known ;)s an effect 
of such Institutions. Lycurgus introduced the Helots 
into Sparta to accomplish this end. He believed that 
the Lacedemonians could not cherish and appreciate 
properly the social and political virtues, and that that 
sjDirit of equality so essential to republican governments 
could not exist, unless the menial and more laborious 
duties were discharged by a seperate and inferior class. 
The beneficial effect upon Spartan character is a mat- 
ter of history. Bryan Edwards, in his History of the 
West Indies, tells us that a similar influence is exercised, 
by this Institution, upon the white inhabitants of 
those islands. He says that " the leading feature of 
their character is an independent spirit, and a display 
of conscious equality throughout all ranks and condi- 
tions. The poorest white person seems to consider 
himself nearly upon a level with the conditon of the 
richest ; and, emboldened by this idea, he approaches 
his employer with extended hand, and a freedom Avhicli, 
in the countries of Europe, is seldom displayed by nuMi 
in the lower orders of life to their superiors.'' In uur 
own countiy, the same truth, so congenial to republi- 
canism, is still more strongly attested, — and in its 
train follow many of the higher virtues. Magnanimity, 
liberality, a spirit of justice, disdain for anything like 
meanness or parsimony of disposition, a love of excel- 
lence, are all characteristics of the Southron. 



60 ORATIONS. 

The facilities and incentives afforded by this Institu- 
tion, for intellectual improvement, are great and grati- 
fying. The necessity for bodily labor being to a great 
extent removed from a large part of our citizens, they 
can devote their full time to the culture of the mind. 
The spirit which it excites, being one content with no 
secondary rank in excellence, prompts to the attain- 
ment of knowledge in its highest dejoartments. In a 
few years, owing to the operation of this institution 
upon our unparalleled natural advantages, we shall 
be the richest people beneath the bend of the rainbow, 
and then the arts and the sciences, which always follow 
in the train of wealth, will flourish to an extent hitherto 
unknown on this side of the Atlantic. 

I might go on and enumerate a thousand other ad- 
vantages which have arisen, and which will arise, from 
this Institution, in a moral and intellectual way, but I 
feel that I am dealing with a subject, of which we had 
better think than speak. I will leave it therefore, with 
the simple remark, that it is worthy of your calm and 
philosophical examination, — and that such an examin- 
ation will prove to you that this, our Peculiar Institu- 
tion, is not only right upon principles of morality, but 
that it is fraught with an influence upon the whole 
character of our section of the Union, of the most 
gratifying kind. 

If I were here to conclude my enumeration of the 
general causes, which have tended to produce South- 
western Character, and their results, I should be ac- 
cused of drawing a flattering and incorrect picture for 
the sake of sectional gratulation. It is but honest to 



thp: southwest. 61 

admit that there are many faultp which have not been 
mentioned. De Tocqueville— perhaps the most sensi- 
ble foreigner who has ever visited the United States — 
in speaking of the Southwest^ says that " it has ever 
been maiked by hiwlessness, frequency of crime, and 
the impunity with which vice is committed." While 
bowing our heads in shame before the truth of this 
charge, I think it can be clearly shown that it depends 
not, as has been asserted, upon causes necessarily inhe- 
rent in the constitution of our society. Indeed the 
charge contains, in its specifications, one of the reasons, 
why they all exist. '' The impunity w4th which vice 
is committed" is the cause of " lawlessness" and " fre- 
quency of crime.'' The fault, then is either in the 
cliaracter of our laws, or in their administration. In- 
deed it is in both : although the evils of the Litter re- 
sult principally from the former. The best guarantee 
for the execution of the laws is that those laws should 
themselves be good. If they are of that kind which 
cannot command the respect of the people, or are such 
as cause the moral sense to revolt at their execution, 
they had better be blotted from the statute-book. You 
cannot expect the officer to enforce the laws, unless 
the feelings of the community are with him in the dis- 
charge of his duty. The history of judicial adminis- 
tration in the Southwest, sustains this assertion. Our 
laws have been impotent, in many cases, because they 
have been disproportioned to the offences ; and the 
guilty have consequently gone unpunished. One such 
omission affects the whole character of justice. Seeing 
the laws disol">eved or neglected in one instance, the 



62 ORATIONS. 

people see no reason wliy they sliould not be in others. 
In many cases, too, we have had no laws where they were 
much needed. This enables gross and shocking offen- 
ces to be committed against the community, for which 
th%n'e is no ample or appropriate penalty. Is it to be 
wondered at that, under such circumstances, the people 
should take, as it is termed, the law into their own 
hands ? This produces that odious, disgraceful and 
dangerous practice called '^ Lynch Law" — which has 
so frequently, of late years, cast a blackening stain 
upon the fair character of our region, and Avhich, like 
the blood of the murdered, upon the hands of the Scot- 
tish usurper, will not out, at our bidding. 

These evils have all resulted from the fact that we 
have not had a proper criminal code, in the two States 
— Alabama and Misissippi — to wliich the charges are 
chiefly applicable : and this has, no doubt, arisen from 
the youth of these States. It takes some time to cre- 
ate a system of penal laws suited to the character of a 
people. It can only be done by a philosophical exam- 
ination of that character. The early legislators of our 
State, and of her western neighbor, erred in thinking 
that a severe code was best calculated for the times. 
It is a maxim of law, that severity is not so sure a pre- 
ventive of crime, as certainty, of punishment ; and 
that there should be a gradation in the penalties, as 
there is in the turpitude, of offences. It is a gratifying 
fact that the law-makers of these States have, at 
length, discovered the truth of these maxims, and have 
set about reforming thei]- criminal codes. It is to be 
ho23ed that the Penitentiary system, v/hich was adopted 



THE SOUTHWEST. 63 

by our Legislature at its last session, will be so arranged 
in its details, as to furnish us a system of penal laws, 
which will fully answer the purposes of justice, and 
save us, in all future time, from the bitter reproach of 
being a lawless and semi-barbarous peo})le. 

If this subject is properly attended to throughout 
the Southwest, the dark shadows which rest upon our 
name will be removed : the ennobling causes of moral 
and intellectual prosperity, to which I have refen-ed, 
will have a full and free operation ; our character will 
become such as we may well be proud of ; and our 
section of the Union will ascend in every respect to 
that lofty excellence, of which it has such ennobling 
prospects. A few remarks upon these Prospects will 
conclude. Gentlemen, what I have to say to you, to- 
day. 

I have sometimes, in hours of contemplation, at- 
tempted to imagine what is to be the destiny of this 
vast region which we inhabit. In my fancies I have 
never, for a moment, se])/rated her from the rest of the 
Union. The chain, which binds us together, seems, 
to my mind, to be composed of moral and political 
motives, and of physical causes, which must always keep 
us one. And yet that unity can only be best preseiTed 
by the citizens of each section, emulating in the pro- 
gress of improvement. If we stand still here in the 
Southwest, our section — in military phrase — cannot 
keep step with the rest of the confederacy ; we must 
hang like a dead limb upon the body national. No 
improper motives, therefore, enter into the seperate 
contemplation of the prospects of our own ])eculia.r re- 



04 ORATIONS. 

gion. In my mind such a contemplation gives birth 
to the pm-est species of patriotic pride. I look around 
over our extended territories, and I find them in the 
possession of a race of men, upon which, for near a 
thousand years, the choicest benedictions of heaven 
seem to have been bestowed : the Anglo-Saxon race. 
They are living beneath the ennobling influence of Ke- 
publican institutions, and under the blessed light of 
the Protestant religion. With that spirit which has 
ever marked their path in history, they are applying 
to the vast natural resources of this region, all the in- 
ventions and improvements which science has given to 
art. By their efforts, gigantic and savage forests have 
been changed into scenes of fruitfulness and beauty. 
Towns and villages have sprung up with the sudden- 
ness of a magician's transformations. Kivers, which 
but a few years ago rolled in unfettered majesty through 
wide solitudes — ^'hearing no sound save their own 
dashing," — ^have been converted into channels of com- 
merce, and are now to be seen, lined with floating pal- 
aces, conveying to the sea the rich productions of the 
soil. Across the high hill, and through the deep val- 
ley, the long Railroad is visible, passing like a thing 
of life, uniting distant communities together, cheapen- 
ing and facilitating fransportation and travel, scattering 
riches around its path with the prodigality of sunshine, 
and giving to the immense advantages of the country, 
their full operation upon the rest of the world. 

And the tide of this improvement is onward ! 
There is no pause — no exhaustion ! Our population 
itself is rapidly increasing. Where forty years ago 



THE bOUTIiWEiST. 65 

there were scarcely tive tliousand civilized inhabitants, 
there are now nearly two millions. Well might Mr. 
Everett say that, when in Germany he spoke of these 
things, his auditors regarded him with the same sur- 
prise and disbelief, with which the Emperor of China 
viewed the English merchant, who told him that, in 
the cold climate of Great Britain, water frequently 
became as hard as stone. And yet this great increase 
of population is going on with the same rapidity. If 
it should continue, in a few years how very vast will 
be the number of our inhabitants ! No States in the 
Union will surpass those of the Southwest. 

From these manifestations, and from the mental and 
moral inliuences to which I have referred, what is 
it reasonable to expect will be the destiny of our sec- 
tion of the Union ? Is it enthusiasm, to believe that 
at no very distant day, we shall, in all the constituents 
of true greatness, in all that can render a people pros- 
perous, happy and respected, in no manner, be inferior 
to any part of the world ! Will you look to Agricul- 
ture ? Already, but with scarce a tithe of our re- 
sources developed, we are furnishing to the world, the 
great staple commodities of trade and manufactures. 
Even now, the failure of one of our crops would affect 
the financial and mercantile interests of Europe to 
their core. South of us, in our own continent, nations 
are s^mnging into existence, which are demanding our 
productions, and will increase the demand for the 
future. This will force us into Commerce. It is true 
that, in past years, our trade has been carried on by 
others, and that through unnatural, and to us expen- 



66 ORATIONS. 

sive, cliannels : and that there are pseudo-philosophers, 
even in our own borders, who tell us that this 
course of things is inevitable, and must' always con- 
tinue. " You want the means — you want the capi- 
ital I" Such talk is unlettered nonsense. We ha^^e 
the means — we have the caj)ital ! We have them in 
our invaluable natural products, w^hich the world must 
have. Nothing but an unjust system of national leg- 
islation — nothing but the consequent indebtedness of 
our merchants in the Northern cities — ^haseverwTenched 
our trade from direct communion with Europe, and 
kept it in a route at once inconvenient and circuitous, 
and w^hich operates to enforce a tax upon us of several 
millions of dollars annually. If the people of this 
section will reflect properly upon this subject — if we 
are left unfettered by restrictive, and oppressive, 
though indirect, legislation — if the leading minds of om* 
region will devote their time and energies to this ob- 
ject — as that master sjDirit, who recently fell in a 
neighboring State,* like Muly Moluck, with his har- 
ness on, in the very onset of the battle — the eiforts of 
interested individuals to control our commerce will be 
as impotent as the struggles of the Persian to fetter 
the heavings of the sea of Greece ; and the South and 
her younger sister the Southwest, will flourish to a de- 
gree which they have hitherto never known. This ex- 
alted consummation, I confidently expect, as not very 
remote. 

But the most ennobling and gratifying prospect, 

* Robert Y. Hayne, of South Carolina. 



THE SOUTHWEST. 67 

which opens to the citizen of the Southwest, is the ex- 
cellence which this section of the Union is to attain in 
Literature. I have looked very erroneously upon the 
natural advantages of our region ; upon the kind and 
character of its inhabitants ; upon the form and na- 
ture of its political and social institutions ; upon the 
moral causes which are at operation among us ; and at 
our prospects in every other res[)ect, if we are not des- 
tined to an exalted position in the Republic of Letters. 
A contemporary poet, not more imaginative than 
philosophical, has told us that " coming events cast 
their shadows before ;" and, if we may deem the ap- 
pearances about us at all indicative of the future, they 
surely w^arrant the anticipation that here the Arts and 
kSciences — the whole circle of Belles-lettres — are to 
flourish with the freshness and beauty of their Grecian 
morning. 

This anticipation, Gentlemen of the Erosophic 
Society, is particularly appropriate to the present occa- 
sion. It blends ^vith, and terminates, the character 
and design of your association. Your object is, by 
improving yourselves, to improve the Literature of 
your country. By Literature, I understand not that 
trivial, puerile and evanescent species of composition, 
which is produced by love-sick school boys, and bread 
and butter misses — not that ginger-bread work of the 
fancy, whose highest ambition is to embalm, in immor- 
tal nonsense, the miraculous feats and failings of 
monks and nuns, of counts and robbers — the very 
spawn of distorted intellect — nor yet that phosphoric 
effulgence, which gleams luridly, as in the infidel and 



bS ORATIONS. 

infamonswri tings of Voltaire and Eousseau, from the 
putrid corruptions of the times — hut hy Literature I 
understand those exalted manifestations of mind which 
show that the people of a country think for themselves, 
think much, think correctly ; that their morals, as 
well as their intellect, are improved ; that they are 
not busied with the frivolous and fantastic incidents 
of a day, but that they look to that knowledge which 
developes and enlarges all the capacities of man; 
which dwindles the distance between the denizens 
of earth and the higher intelligences of heaven; 
and which not only receives its own form and 
fashion from the character of the people and the times, 
but, as the sea answers to the sun, serves as a mirror 
in which those people and times are j^i'operly reflected 
for their own gratification and improvement, and 
which flings back upon them a reforming and beuti- 
fying lustre not primitively their own Such is the 
Literature of which a nation may be proud. Such was 
the view the Abbe Eollin took, when he included in 
his course of lectures, at the University of Paris, upon 
Belles-lettres, the whole circle of ancient and modern 
learning, and such too is the order of Literature, 
which I am sure I shall have your warmest sympathies, 
in predicting, from her natural, j)olitical and social 
characteristics, for the Southwest. That the period is 
distant when we shall have such a Literature, is per- 
haps true ; but that it will come is as certain as that 
we shall arrive at great agricultural, commercial and 
political power. You, Gentlemen, may not live to see 
it; but by using your exertions, throughout life, to 



THE SOUTHWEST. 69 

develope and improve the iutellectual resources of our 
region, to disseminate a just appreciation and taste for 
the higher branches of learning, and to teach our peo- 
ple that there is something more valuable and exalting 
in life — something better suited to the destiny of 
beings whose immortality, has already begun — than 
the mere arts of traffic and amassing money — you 
may accelerate the dawn of this ennobling period — 
may produce a '^ circle in the waters,'' which unlike 
the emblem of ambition, will not break by its own 
extension ! 

When this period shall arrive, our section of the 
Union will be in its full power and glory ; our history, 
our character, our capacities, will be properly under- 
stood and appreciated. We may then expect to see 
our orators occuj^ying the most conspicuous stations in 
the chambers of National Eloquence : our authors 
illuminating the age by the j)hilosophy and beauty 
of their productions. Then, perhaps, the Genius of 
Immortality shall — as in the beautiful emblematic 
device of your own Society — place the wi'eath of Fame 
upon the brow of many a native Franklin : and then 
the voice of Poetry — not in her cliaracter as a prophet, 
but as a historian — shall litly exclaim, in the slightly 
altered language of an accomplished female writer of 
our own state : 

' That, not for northern latitudes alone. 
The stars of virtue and of Genius shone ; 
Tliese, moving onward from our country's birth 
To bless, successive, all its spots of earth, 
Shed their full beams' their brightest, and their best. 
Upon the regions of the sweet Southwest.' 



CLAIMS AND CHARACTERISTICS 

OF 

ALABAMA HISTOID Y: 

AN ORATION 

BEFORE THE HISTORICAL SOCIETY OP ALABAMA, 

AT ITS 

^nnibtrsaru at CustaLoosa, Julg 9, X855. 



ORATION. 



Gentlemen : 

The most elegant of Roman historians, in tlie intro- 
duction to one of his memorable works, complains of 
the want, in his time, of associated effort for the col- 
lection and preservation of the elements of history. 
He tells us that to individual enterprise it was almost ex- 
exclusively left to gather and perpetuate the memorials 
of the past, the records of distingushed achievements, 
and "the images of those illustrious men, whose exam- 
ples powerfully animate to virtue, and enkindle an inex- 
tinguishable flame of emulation in the breasts of their 
descendants." Thus, the cultivated era of Sallust had 
not the advantages of Historical Societies. These, the 
most powerful auxiliaries of the recording pen, are the 
product of a period of more extended intellectual re- 
finement. It is in comparatively modern times, that 
the lovers of historical composition, — the generous 
'uinds who would chronicle the deeds and virtues of 
their ancestors ; the growth, progress and renown of 



74 ORATIONS. 

their countiy ; the advancement of the arts and sciences; 
the diiFusion of light, liberty, and literature; the 
amelioration of humanity, and all the other chequered 
events and influences, which form the life of a people 
— leaving lessons of instruction for the future, — have 
availed themselves of the obviously vast advantages 
derivable from communion in the prosecution of their 
laudable efforts. Historical Societies are the most 
efficient agencies ever established for the accurate and 
comprehensive preparation of history. They not only 
seize upon the fleeting memorials temporis acti, — so as 
to present the very form and body of the time, more 
faithfully and fully, than individual ministry could 
perform, — ^but they rectify, in the light of common 
perceptions, the errors of conflicting accounts, the ob- 
liquities of personal vision, and the crudities and 
inconsistencies of partialities, prejudices and passions, 
and serve, at the same time, the lofty offices of critical 
judgment and historic philosophy. Such at least 
would be the character and functions of such associa- 
tions if they were properly conducted. 

To every country its own history is of prime impor- 
tance. Upon this, its national character and its na- 
tional sentiments depend. Patriotism, the first of 
civic virtues, can have no intelligent basis, beyond a 
blind instinct, save in a just appreciation of the excel- 
lences which have marked the career of a country ;— 
of the services, sufferings, and devotion of its sons ; of 
the justice, beauty and utility of its institutions ; of 
its adaptation to the wants of civilized society, and of 
the lessons of heroism, philanthropy, and intellectual 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 75 

and moral grandeur which its annals present. How 
essential then, to every State or nation which aspires 
to be more tliaii a mere Zahara in history, that its records 
should be compiled and embodied, and its chronicles, — 
vivified and embellished by the touches of genius, — be 
rendered im])erishable monuments for future ages. 

To aid in this great object is, I repeat, the chief 
office and excellence of Historical Associations. The 
Society, whose anniversary we commemorate, though 
but yet in its infancy; is one of these. The American 
States, in their confederated nationality, present the 
proudest manifestation of man's moral grandeur, in a 
political ^rganism, ever yet given to the world. Each 
of these States, though they blend in historical as in 
political analogies, has a history of its own, peculiar in 
its parts, and demanding separate illustration. This 
has led to separate histories of our several republics, 
and in most of them to the establishment of Historical 
Societies. Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania 
and Virginia, have had such institutions for near half 
a century, and their scholars, statesmen and worthies 
of every class, have taken especial pride in contributing 
to their advancement and prosperity. How many me- 
morials of the fickle fortunes of the times, of the tran- 
sitory but yet interesting incidents of the day, of the 
services, sacrifices, trials and triumphs of heroes, states- 
men, orators, philosophers and divines, have thus been 
rescued from the remorseless jaws of time, which, like 
another Saturn, loves to devour his own progeny. 

Other and younger States have also their flourisliing 
Historical Societies. I will but mention those of 



76 ORATIONS. 

Georgia and Louisiana, our neighboring sisters, wKose 
institutions, though recently established, have contri- 
buted largely to the fund of historic knowledge, par- 
ticularly as relates to their own territories. They have 
garnered from the waste and perishing harvests of the 
past, much useful and interesting information, and the 
light from these sources, shed over the incidents of 
their colonial period, invests them with an interest 
that fascinates the student, and makes him linger with 
delight over the career of Oglethorpe, or the still more 
wonderful adventures of Marquette and La Salle. 

To appreciate how much Historical Societies may 
do, for the furtherance of History in its most elevated 
sense, let us glance at the materials which properly 
enter into and compose their collections. Their libra- 
ries embrace all the rare and curious books, charts and 
manuscripts, which illustrate or bear upon the discov- 
eiy, exploration, first settlement and future fortunes of 
the State. All the materials, however minute or 
ephemeral, from which the great narrative of events is 
subsequently to be framed, are thus collected together. 
Biographies of individuals of all classes, local histo- 
ries and sketches, transactions and journals of pub- 
lic assemblages, proceedings of legislative bodies, 
laws, ordinances, discussions, and debates, judicial trials 
and decisions, statistics, essays and addresses, pei'iodi- 
cal publications, magazines, reviews and newspapers, — 
those " brief abstracts and chronicles of the time," — 
all these, — the elements of History — are gathered and 
presei^ed by such associations as this. They are the 
disjecta membra, which some future Prometheus is- to 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 77 

combine and harmonize, and inform witli that lire from 
heaven — the Godlike flame of Genius. 

For no portion of our country is such an associa- 
tion so important as for our own State of Alabama. 
This Society has -before it as inviting a field and as 
potent inducements as are presented in any other mem-* 
ber of the Union. Though ours is but one of the 
younger States ; though she has no Revolutionary 
heraldry ; though the dynasty of the wilderness, with 
its red and roving tenants, has but recently passed by ; 
though two-score years have not elapsed since the 
establishment of our Constitution ; and though but a 
small part of our adult population are natives of the 
soil, — yet Alabama Ijas a history as extended and 
remarkable, as diversified and romantic, as abounding 
in strange particulars and incidents, as full of the most 
wonderful phases and contrasts of human life in savage 
and civilized conditions, and as marked by the bloody 
struggles of contending forces, as any other part of our 
country ; and over this wide field, so picturesque and 
attractive, hangs a misty veil, — a morning fog, wTcathed 
around its hills and vallies, — which the first dawn 
of the sun of historical research has not entirely lifted 
from its repose, so as to render luminous with golden 
rays, the attractive regions beyond. 

The mission of the Alabama Historical Society is to 
penetrate this terra incognita, and to bring its hidden 
places to light. Your scope includes the whole extent 
of our history from its earliest discoverable period to 
the present day. You stand, in some sort as De Soto 
did, three hundred and fifteen years ago, with his steel- 



78 OKATIONS. 

clad chivalry—his centaur-like warriors, and his white 
stoled priests, upon the borders of our unexplored ter- 
ritory. Far as his eagle-rcyes can pierce, from the last 
elevated spur of the Look-out Mountains, he beholds 
a virgin wilderness of all forests, intersected, like 
lines of silver, by giant rivers, along whose banks rove, 
in savage and defiant magnificence, the most powerful 
of all the primeval races that tenanted this continent. 
His purpose is to explore, to conquer, and to reduce 
to the uses of civilized man, those boundless regions, in 
which he fondly thought to find the golden treasures 
of Mexico and Peru, or the still more precious waters of 
the Fountain of Youth, which was to restore his decaying 
faculties and give him an immortality upon earth. The 
fabulous narratives of Ponce de Leon, and Pamphilo 
Narvaez, had thus brought the lingering remnants of 
the Age of Chivalry — of the Flower of Spanish 
Knighthood — to expend their last waves upon the 
Indian-guarded forests of Alabama. 

With far different objects, but in certain similitudes 
of research, you stand upon the borders of Alabama 
history. It is yours to bring to light all that con- 
cerns the primeval condition of our territory — to trace, 
with the first explorers, their blood-stained paths, 
along our winding rivers and through the heart of 
the mighty wilderness ; to fight over with them again 
their sanguinary battles ; to view the wild and roman- 
tic aboriginal races contest with the invader 
every inch of the soil ; to hear that first of patriot 
warrriors, the unconquerable Tuscaloosa, peal forth 
his kingly battle-cry ; and to see him die with more 



^ ALABAMA HISTORY. 79 

/' 

than the grandeur of iSardanapalus, ami^ the flames 
of his sacked and suffering city — the first city of 
Mobile. What a field of historic research thus opens 
up, even in this imperfect view ! The veil is now 
lifted from the condition of the first possessors of our 
territory, and their long and curious career, pregnant 
with enigmas, and often as silent as the Sphinx of the 
Sands, presents itself for philosophic investigation. 
Coming on down through the successive eras of French, 
British, Spanish, and Anglo-American colonization and 
possession, what shifting and motley hues are exhib- 
ited in the kaleidoscope of our past. These are the 
domains of the Alabama Historical Society. To col- 
lect the confused and scattered accounts of these times 
long gone ; to draw, from the slumbering Herculaneums 
of French, Spanish, and British archives, the original 
naiTatives and reports of the first European explorers 
and occupants, and render them accessible in our ver- 
nacular ; to garner the fast fading memorials of our 
Indian progenitors; and from a later day, to draw 
forth, embody, and compile, appropriate narratives of 
the adventures of the pioneers of the present popu- 
lation, as they gradually, through wars and perils, 
and trials of every kind, passed into the bosom 
of our State, hewed down the wilderness, opened the 
broad and fertile fields, laid the foundation of social 
comfort, and civic prosperity, and eventually organized 
a State Constitution, distinguished above all others 
for its guarantees to freedom of conscience, freedom of 
thought, freedom of speech, and freedom of individual 
action— to gather and perpetuate the evidences and 



*80 . ORATIONS. 

mementoes of all this, are the functions^ the opportu- 
nities and the duties of this associatson. 

Will any one say that the field of Alabama History 
is devoid of interest and attractiveness, and unworthy 
of cultivation ? A superficial glance at its leading 
phases would refute the assertion. I think that, even 
in the limited space allowed me now, I can show you 
that, in all the elements which render history valuable ; 
in contributions to a knowledge of human nature under 
most novel and remarkable circumstances ; in the pre- 
sentation of the finest materials for literary perfoi-mance, 
alike in prose romance, and all the departments of poet- 
ry; and in the possession of the noblest subjects for the 
graceful offices of painting and sculpture, our past is 
truly classic ground, and that there the genius of Prescott 
and Irving, of Scott and Cooper, Allston and Weir, 
of Powers and Crawford, might have found the richest 
opportunities for its exercise. I will glance along at 
a few passages which will illustrate my argument, and 
may, at the same time, bring to light, times, events 
and personages which the recording pencil has not 
yet delineated or developed. 

Some of the most remarkable and romantic chapters 
in our history have already been frequently portrayed. 
The story of De Soto, at which I have glanced, is fa- 
miliar to all. I shall not dwell upon it, but only re- 
mark, that in my estimate, it, above all others, affords 
the best opportunity for a great American Epic. The 
fierce and fiery chivalry of Spain, with gleaming hel- 
mets, and ringnig armor, with champing steeds, and 
waving banners, — accompanied by a pious priesthood 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 81 

ever bearing aloft the Rym])ol of Christianity, — push- 
ing its way, like the path of some great fiery dragon, 
through the imniemorial homes of the ever hostile and 
untamable savage, whose superstitions were all as gro- 
tesque, as his traditions, his manners and customs 
were marvellous, — all this, through the noblest region 
that the sun ever iUuminated, still in its fresh and un- 
shorn verdure, — presents a theme from which the 
erenius of a Homer would have framed more than an 
Odyssey, and the warrior-harp of Tasso would have 
kindled into as glowing verses as celebrated the Deliv- 
ery of Jerusalem. Some youthtul American Homer, 
not blind like old Ma3onides, but eagle-eyed and fiery- 
hearted, niay yet " fling a poem, like a comet forth," 
worthy of this great Pilgrimage, and of the genius of 
our country. Meanwhile, Powell, a native painter, has 
given us, in a great Historical picture, the "Discov- 
ery of the Mississippi, by De Soto," which deserves its 
conspicuous place in our national Pantheon at Wash- 
ington. 

The period of the possession of Alabama by the 
French, is replete with remarkable occurrences and ro- 
mantic details. They came with the closing months 
of the seventeenth century, and held for sixty-five 
years. Besides their principal settlement at Mobile, 
they had military and trading posts, at Fort Toulouse, 
near the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, on the 
recent site of Fort Jackson ; at the mouth of the Ca- 
hawba ; at Jones' Bluff, on the Tombeckbee ; at the 
present site of Saint Stephens ; at Nashville, on the 
CninberlMnd ; and at tlie Muscle Shoals, on the Ten- 



82 OKATIONS. 

nessee, then called the Cherokee river. The erection 
and intercourse of these several stations^ and their deal- 
ings with the Indians were constantly attended by diffi- 
culties, perilsj massacres and conflicts, of the most 
exciting character. The French traders and mission- 
aries were ever bold, adventurous and enterprising, and 
it is not extravagant to say that every inch of our terri- 
tory was trod by their feet, if not watered by their blood, 
more than a hundred years ago. Numerous wars were 
also kept up with the Indian tribes, exhibiting instan- 
ces of heroism upon both parts. But I cannot notice 
them at present. Time will only allow me to dwell 
upon some of the general characteristics of the French 
inhabitants, who varied in number, during this pro- 
tracted period, from three hundred to three thousand 
j)ersons, dwelling principally at Mobile. They were a 
gay, light-hearted, adventurous population. From the 
first, their national flexibility and vivacity of temper 
enabled them, with cons^^icuous facility, to ingratiate 
themselves with the Indian tribes. Their young men 
readily adopted the manners, tastes and pursuits of 
the wilderness, and soon became as expert woodmen, 
hunters, and trappers, as the natives themselves. 
Many a '' Hawk-Eye'' or "Leather-Stocking" was to 
be found among the coui^ieurs de hois from Mobile. 
Marriages, temporary, or permanent, with the lithe- 
limbed maidens of the Choc taws or Alabamas, formed 
links of amity and influence, and gave rise to mixed 
races, long after clinging to their paternal names. 
The adventures of the forest, along interminable riv- 
ers, over loftv mountains, or across flower-enameled 



ALABAMA HI6T0RY. 83 

prairies, whether in pursuit of furs and game, or in 
the hazardous euterprisi's of war and traiHc, or with the 
niihl-minded missionary in the dissemination of the 
doetrines of the Cross, among the benighictl savages, 
furnished fascinating topics of narration, with which 
the curiosity of the women and children, around the 
domestic hearth-stone, was regaled upon the return 
of the adventurers. The body of the population, at 
Mobile, were however, engaged in small mercantile 
avocations, and the constant caravans of Indian po- 
nies, laden with packs and kegs and tin-cups, afiorded 
picturesque evidences of their inland tratiic. Their 
persons, their houses, their tables and couches were 
decorated or sujDplied from the spoils of the chase, in 

\ contrast with the embellishments of French finery. 

\ The construction of the town f\icilitated the nimble 
conversations, across the narrow huddled street, from 

/ door to door of the low wide-eaved houses. The 

/ days were generally spent in industry ; the evenings in 
dancing and merriment. Many of the colonists had 
been gentlemen in France ; some of them of noble or- 
igin ; and most of them had pursued military careers. 
Spirited and adventurous, they had their packs of dogs, 
their guns, their boats, their Indian beauties, with the 
influence of a voluptuous climate, and the boundless 
opportunities and invitations of a nev,^ Avorld, fresh and 
blooming, to provoke and minister to their desires and 
imaginations. These were the Arcadian days of the 
French 7^egime, and such in part, were the characteris- 
tics of the population of Mobile, an hundred years 
n,.ro ! Tempora muiantur, ef vos mutamur in i'Uf'sf 



84 ORATIONS. 

What mind is there, but must be destitute of imasfi- 
nation, that does not find in times and scenes and con- 
ditions like these, — in the picturesque contrasts be- 
tween the colonists and their savage neighbors ; in 
their wars, skirmishes, captivities, and perilous adven- 
tures ; in the fearless Jesuit or the bare-footed Car- 
melite threading the wilderness to propagate the tenets 
of his creed ; and in the countless diversities of indi- 
vidual character, the finest materials for fictitious 
composition. What a series of romances, equalling in 
interest the Waverley Novels, might be founded upon 
the single career of the gallant and chivalrous Bienville, 
during the many vicissitudes of his adixdnistration as 
Governor, for more than forty years. He was the 
heroic founder of Alabama — the Father of our State. 
The incidents of its early history cluster around him, 
like the leaves of the oak around their parent stem, and 
the historian or the novelist can scarcely have a finer 
theme than to de2:)ict his character and career. 
' The autumn of 1763 saw the dominion of Mobile 
and its appendages in the interior pass from France to 
Great Britain. They were a part of the acquisitions 
of the Seven Years' War, which lost to France all her 
possessions in North America. The newly acquired 
territory was made a part of West Florida, with 
George Johnston, a captain in the Navy, as Governor. 
Mobile was taken possession of, on the 20th of 
October, by Major Robert Farmer, as the agent of the 
King. A regiment of Scotch Highlanders, under Col. 
Robertson, was sent to garrison Fort Conde. They 
arrived from Pensacola, by way of the Bay. The act 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 85 

of transfer was signalized hy appropriate ceremonies. 
iThe Scottish bag-pipes sounded the national anthem 
(of England, as the lillies of St. Denys were lowered 
ifrom the flag-staff of Fort Conde, and the lion of St. 
peorge elevated in their- stead : and a feu dejoie an- 
nounced that the name of the fortress, in compliment 
to the Queen of Great Britain, was changed to Fort 
Charlotte. Soon after, for the purposes of civil juris- 
diction, that portion of the province west of the Per- 
dido, as far as Pearl river, was erected into a county, 
called after the same princess, Charlotte County ; and 
appropriate judicial and ministerial officers were ap- 
pointed. Some of the papers executed at this period, 
and evincing these facts, are now among the records 
of the Probate Court of Mobile County. 

The period of British possession embraces twenty 
years, and includes the era of the American Revolution. 
As from this fact it has a peculiar interest, and has 
never been described by any writer, 1 may add some- 
thing to the fund of historic knowledge, by dwelling 
more protractedly upon a few of its leading incidents 
than would otherwise be appropriate. It may, how- 
ever, be reniarked that we have but little accessible 
information as to the condition and progress of affairs 
at Mobile and in the interior, during the dynasty of 
the British, for when they evacuated the province, 
some years after, they earned with them all the doc- 
uments referring to this period, and deposited them in 
Somerset House, London, " where according to positive 
information," says the Spanish Surveyor General, Vin- 
cent Pintado, they were to be found in 1817, and un- 



86 ORATIONS. 

doubteclly still remain. Would it not be an object 
worthy of your association^ Gi-entlemen, to endeavor to 
obtain copies of these j)apers ? Meanwhile, we must 
grope our way through obscure chronicles and incidental 
allusions, for any information as to this period. 
\ The first British governor of Alabama, Major Eobert 
Farmer, appears to have been a personage of marked 
peculiarities of character, and, if we may credit the por- 
traiture of a French cotemporary at New Orleans, 
would form a not unfit companion-piece for the Knick- 
erbocker functionaries of Irving, — Walter Von Twiller, 
and Peter Stuyvesant. Aubry, writing to the French 
government, (May 16, 1765,) says : '^ The correspon- 
dence which I am obliged to have with the English, 
who write to me from all parts, and particularly with 
the governor of Mobile, gives me serious occupation. 
This governor is an extraordinary man. As he knovv^s 
that I speak English, he occasionally writes to me in 
verse. He speaks to me of Francis I. and Charles V. 
He compares Pontiak, an Indian chief, with Mithri- 
dates ; he says that he goes to bed with Montesquieu. 
y When there occur some petty dfficulties between the 
inhaitants of New Orleans and ' Mobile, he quotes to 
me' from the Great Charter (Magna Charta) and the 
laws of Great Britain. It is said that the English 
Ministry sent him to Mobile, to get rid of him, because 
he was one of the hottest in the opposition. He pays 
me handsome compliments, which I duly return him, 
and, upon the whole, he is a man of parts, but a dan- 
gerous neighbor, against whom it is well to be on one's 
guard." 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 87 

This is cjftainly a graphic sketch of the poetical and 
classicali^predecessor of the later Chief Magistrates of 
our State. 

The first step of the new authorities was to take, 
possession of the military and trading establishments 
in the interior, which had been partially dismantled by 
the retiring French. Tombeckbee, now Jones' Bluif, 
was delivered to Captain Thomas Ford on the 20th of 
November ; and a garrison was soon after placed in 
Fort Toulouse. These stations respectively comman- 
ded the intercourse with the Choctaw and Creek In- 
dians. 

The spring of the next year saw at Mobile, one of 
the largest assemblages of aboriginal chiefs and Avar- 
riors, ever collected in our country. It was a congress 
of the head-men of all the tribes south of the Ohio, 
convened to meet Capt. John Stewart, the British 
Superintendent of Indian Aflairs in the South. The 
career of this functionary is a romance of thrilling in- 
terest. He was one of the few survivors of the terrible 
massacre at Fort Loudon, on the Tennessee, having 
been spared by reason of his popularity with the sava- 
ges. The chiefs now flocked to meet him to the num- 
ber of more than two thousand, and, wath their flmtas- 
tic equipments, presented a most imposing spectacle 
of savage grandeur. They were encamped for many 
days within sight of tlie frowning battlements of Fort 
Charlotte. The Superintendent was a man of elo- 
quence and shrewdness, as well as of great experience 
and knowledge of Indian character, and he delivered 
an able si»eech, still extant, in Hewitt's History of 



88 . ORATIONS. 

-Carolina, which had a powerful influence on all the 
tribes, and induced them to enter into the desired 
treaty with the British." Only the Six Lower Towns 
of the Choctaws, and some of the contiguous Creeks 
dissented, and preferred following the banner of the 
French to the west of the Mississippi. Thus the many 
scattered and nomadic villages of Alabama and Missis- 
sippi Indians — the Tensaws, Biloxis, Pascagoulas, and 
Alabamas, — which have bewildered some siDCCulative 
historians, — made their homes in Louisiana. 

Liberal grants of public land were speedily made, 
by the British authorities, to induce settlements in the 
interior. These I cannot stop to note. But among 
the earliest beneficiaries of the govermental bounty, 
was a colony of French Protestants, whose amiable 
characters and melancholy fortunes give them a pecu- 
liar interest. Their story is but little less romantic 
than that of the French Emigrants in Marengo, with 
which you are familiar. 

Anxious to secure that dearest of earthly privileges, 
— ''freedom to worship Grod," — they solicited, under 
the patronage of the provincial governor, and received 
from the King of Great Britain, a large grant of land 
upon the Escambia river. This they undertook to 
cultivate with the olive, vine and mulberry, and with 
rice, indigo, and tobacco, — staples whose culture the 
government was solicitous to promote. To the num- 
ber of sixteen leading families, embracing sixty-nine 
persons, male and female, many of them educated, in- 
telligent and refined, accompanied by carpenters, coo- 
pers, blacksmiths, tanners, and other artisans, to the 



ALABAMA HISTORY. . 89 

number of two hundred and nine, they were transpor- 
ted in the spring of 1767, at the royal expense, to their 
concession. At once they entered industriously upon 
the purposes of their emigration. Their white cottages 
rose amid the live-oak groves of the region, and the 
spire of the little neighborhood church pointed its fin- 
ger of Protestant faith to the sky. But unfortunately 
the next summer and autumn proved one of those 
fatal seasons of visitation from '' the yellow tyrant of 
the tropics," and well-nigh all of this interesting colony 
fell victims to that terrible disease. The Arcadian 
scheme of Agricultural life was totally destroyed, and 
the few survivors made their way to Pensacola or Mo- 
bile, to lament their friends and seek for more salubri- 
ous scenes of employment. What materials for descrip- 
tion and pathetic delineation would the genial pens of 
a Mitford, a Crabbe, or a Wilson have found in this 
simple narrative from the Lights and Shadows of Ala- 
bama Life ! 

The period of the American Revolution was now at 
hand ; and it will be interesting to learn what relation 
our colonists held to that great movement. The 
inhabitants of Mobile and Pensacola, as well as of 
East Florida, were united in interest, and had but 
little intercourse or sympathy with the other British 
colonies. They were too weak, too isolated, and felt 
too sensibly the gurdian care of the parent government, 
to desire independence. Accounts of the earlier strug- 
gles of the Revolution reached them, but only produced 
a smile of derision at the '^ Bostonian Liberty Boys,'' 
as the patriots were termed. A few ardent spirits got 



90 OKATIONS. 

up a remonstrance against local grievances and tlie 
proceedings of Peter Chester, the Grovernor, and trans- 
mitte'd it to the British ministry ; but it Vv^as utterly 
disregarded. Still the people could not be induced to 
unite in the rebellion of the other colonies. Various 
efforts were made by Captain James Willing, of Phil- 
adelphia, and Oliver Pollock, the agents of the Conti- 
nental Congress, to seduce them from their allegiance. 
These gentlemen came by way of New Orleans to 
Mobile, and circulated clandestinely, many copies of 
the Declaration of Independence. But the effort was 
a bortive. After many narrow escapes. Captain Willing 
was at length aj^prehended through the vigilance of the 
British officers, and was kept closely confined, a part 
of the time in irons, in the stone Keep of Fort 
Charlotte. He came near expiating his temerity upon 
a gallows in the j)laza in front of that fortress, but Avas 
eventually exchanged at the close of the year 1779, 
for Colonel Hamilton of Detroit, a British officer, upon 
whom our government had retaliated for the rigorous 
treatment of the imprisoned agent. 

But the inhabitants of Mobile, though they would not 
participate in the struggle for Independence, were not 
to be exempt from the ravages of war attending that 
event. Spain took part with France in the hostilities 
against Great Britain, and ordered her American sub- 
jects to join in the conflict. Galvez, a gallant and 
gifted officer, was Grovernor of Louisiana, and speedily 
seized the English establishments at Baton Kouge and 
Fort Bute, on Bayou Manchac. He then proceeded to 
invest Mobile, with an army of two thousand men. 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 91 

This force, finely equipped, and provided with artillery, 
was brought in vessels, by sea, from New Orleans. 
Landing below Choctaw Point, Galvez advanced to the 
assault upon Fort Charlotte. This fortress was gar- 
risoned by only eighty regular troops, but they were 
considerably reinforced by the inhabitants who took 
shelter within its staunch and solid stone walls, 
which, defended by British troops, were not to be 
yielded without a struggle. The Red Cross at the 
top of the flag-staff returned a stern defiance to the 
summons to surrender. 

The future Viceroy of Mexico, whose name is so 
honored in Spanish annals, erected his batteries, six in 
number, with heavy artillery, to the north and west of 
the Fort. The intervening houses were burned, and a 
spirited cannonade was carried on for several days. 
At length, on the 14th of March, 1780, a breach in the 
walls had been effected, -and the commander was com- 
pelled to capitulate. Honorable terms were allowed 
for the gallantry of the defence ; but the town had suf- 
fered severely from the siege. Among the dwellings 
destroyed, was the handsome residence of Major 
Robert Farmer, the former " Governor/' who had be- 
come a ricli landholder, but had died a sliort time 
before. 

A visitor at the present time to our State emporium 
would scarcely imagine that occun'ences like these had 
ever happened upon its wide and peaceful site, over- 
built with graceful edifices and adorned with flowering 
gardens ; though it is but only the other day that, in 
cutting the foundations for the new City Market, 



92 ORATIONS. 

the spade of the laborer encountered the still solid 
relics of old Fort Conde, which, after having stood for 
a hundred and ten years, was destroyed by the orders of 
the American Government, that the ground upon 
which it stood might be used for more civic and utili- 
tarian purposes. 

The close of the American Eevolution left Mobile 
and its dependencies in the hands of Spain, and hers 
it rerdained for thirty years. This era is one of great 
interest, and full of events that increase in attractive- 
ness, as they approach our own times. But I must 
pass them, noticing only a commercial house of large 
capital and extensive transactions, which had sj^rung 
up during the British possession, but now became still 
more powerful, indeed a ruling influence in the whole 
Southwest. It was known under the firm-title first, 
of "Panton, Leslie & Co.," and subsequently of '^John 
Forbes & Co." The partner's were intelligent and 
enterprising merchants of Scottish origin, and had 
branches of their house at Matanzas and Pensacola. 
They owned and employed many vessels, and their 
principal object was to supply the Indians with every 
species of merchandize. For many years they had 
can'ied on a large and prosperous business ; but when 
Spain took possession of Florida, it became a part of 
her policy to obtain the exclusive trade of the Indians, 
by drawing it off from the English of Georgia and 
South Carolina. For this end, they made treaties 
with the Alabamas, Choctaws, and Chickasaws, to 
deal only with some one Spanish house, to be chosen 
by their chiefe. Panton, Leslie & Co. secured this 



ALABAMA UlbTORY. \)3 

rich privilege, by admitting, as . a secret member of 
tlieir firm, Alexander McGillivray, the celebrated chief 
and emperor of the Creek Confederacy. This was the 
secret of the inlliience which the Spaniards ever retained 
over that powerful chieftain, and which the authorities 
of Georgia and the General Government, with Wash- 
ington at its head, could neither understand nor de- 
stroy, and it led to the many bloody hostilities in which 
they were involved upon the frontiers. 

This grasping and powerful house thus established 
business connections with all the Southern Indians. In 
every tribe and quarter they had their agents and ped- 
lars ; drew constant crowds of Indians to their stores 
and ware-houses at Mobile and Pensacola ; granted ex- 
tensive credits to chieftains and tribes ; despatched 
their vessels to the West Indies and Euroj)e, laden with 
peltries, furs, and other products of the country ; received 
returned cargoes of every variety of merchandize; 
amassed immense profits ; and wielded a commercial 
power and influence not before or since equaled by any 
one house in either of the emporiums of the South. 
Some of the partners resided at Mobile, thi'oughout the 
Spanish period, in fine residences, elegantly supplied 
with the luxuries of taste and comfort ; and they 
lived in a style of princely magnificence. By taking 
the oath of allegiance to the Spanish crown, they 
secured the right of citizenship, and became gran- 
tees of large tracts of land, which have been subjects 
of frequent legal investigation under our government. 
The firm w\as at first composed of John Forbes, Wil- 
liam Panton, and John Leslie. The last two retiring, 



.94 ORATIONSI. 

John and James Innerarity, brothers, became members 
under its second designation. The several associates, 
exce23ting McGillivray, were all related by either con- 
sanguinity or marriage, and were connected with 
wealthy Spanish families in Cuba. 

Towards the termination of its existence, this opu- 
lent house found all the Indian tribes largely in its 
debt, and was compelled to take from them in pay- 
ment extensive tracts of land, which • were ceded by 
treaty. The Choctaws, thus made compensation for a 
debt of more than forty thousand dollars ; and the 
Lower Creeks and Seminoles (McGillivray being dead) 
granted, in liquidation of a much larger debt, a million 
and a half of acres, on the Apalachicola. How forcibly 
do the fortunes of this house verify, even in the primi- 
tive days of Alabama, the assertion of Carlyle, that 
" Commerce is King ! " 

The lingering dynasty of the Spaniard fades into 
the morning dawn of Anglo-Saxon settlements in our 
State. The hour and the man had now come to subdue 
and possess the wilderness. As early as the Kevolution, 
large bodies of the unfortunate adherents of the British 
cause had fled from South Carolina and Greorgia, 
through the dense and pathless forests between, to the 
shores of the Tombeckbee and Mobile Bay. They 
laid the first foundations of American inhabitancy in 
the counties of Clarke, Washington, and Baldwin. 
Some of the stragglers lingered on the way, and inter- 
married with the Creek Indians, giving rise to the half- 
breed chieftains, such as the Mackintoshes, the Manacs, 
the McQueens, the McGirks, and others subsequently 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 95 

winning sanguinary celebrities. What an atmosphere 
of romance hangs over even this portion of our 
story; but how it is dee^^ened and brightened with 
sunnier hues, as the streams of population now jwur 
in, from the eastward, through savage perils, across 
giant rivers, and through unopened ivoods, to the 
Southwestern quarter of our State. The various trea- 
ties of the French, British and Spanish, with the In- 
dians, made this region the resort of the first emigrants. 
The experiences of this backwoods life, for more than 
twenty years, were quite as singular and wonderful as 
those of Boone and Kenton in Kentucky, or Sevier 
and Eobertson in Tennessee. They had their quarrels 
and conflicis with the Spaniards on their Southern bor- 
der, and more than one filibuster enterprise was pro- 
jected for the seizure of Mobile. 

But time as it passed on and filled these solitudes with 
settlers, at last brought the most sanguinaiy era in 
Alabama history. The leading incidents of the war 
that begun at Burnt Corn and Fort Mims, and end- 
ed at the Horse Shoe — the bloody Illiad, in which the 
form of Jackson stands conspicuously forth, a greater 
than Achilles — is better known than other chajiter in our 
annals. The subordinate events of the time, form- 
ing the no less interesting, though more private his- 
tory of our people, have generally been overlooked, 
living only in perishing traditions. The first pioneers 
and settlers of our State encountered dangers, priva- 
tions and sufferings, and performed heroic actions well 
worthy of being registered by the Muse of History. 
They were a hardy, gallant, adventurous race. Take 



96 ORATIONS. 

onCj a central figure, as an example. I see before me, 
in imagination, as I saw him more than twenty years 
ago, the stalwart form, the Herculean proj^ortions, of 
Gen. Samuel Dale. He was the Daniel Boone of Ala- 
bama. Inured from his boyhood to Indian conflicts 
on the frontiers of Georgia, and early trained to all the 
wiles and stratagems of savage warfare ; winning the 
highest character for dauntless courage, vigilance and 
strength ; then a trader among the Creeks and Chero- 
kees, exchanging manufactured goods for cattle and 
ponies ; then a guide for emigi^ants along the blind or 
blazed paths that led from Georgia to the Tombeck- 
bee ; and eventually a settler, with his wife and his axe 
in Clarke county, — this man, when the war with the 
Indians broke out, was the very man for the time. 
The Red Men of Alabama knew him well, and dreaded 
his prowess. In their descriptive language, they 
called him Sam Tlilucco, or Big Sam. And well did 
he justify, by his performances, the fear of his enemies. 
The Canoe Fight, where with only two assistants, he 
vanquished nine of the most gallant Creek warriors, is 
but one incident in the chronicle of his deeds. On 
another day, solitary and alone, he had slain with his 
own hands, five warriors, and rescued a female prisoner, 
who speedily evinced her gi'atitude by saving him from 
the knife of a sixth foeman, who would otherwise have 
succeeded in taking his life. 

This is the Representative Man of the era of our War 
with the Creeks. And well might his statue tower 
in marble in our halls of State. He was a Richard 
Cceur de Leon, — a Godfrey of Bouillon — moulded and 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 97 

fashioned to the circumstances of his forest home. 
After the war lie served in our Legislature, honored a 
new country with his name, and then went to Missis- 
sippi, to die in the fulness of years, in May, 1841, hon- 
ored and heloved. 

Cotemporary with the advent of Dale to South Ala- 
bama, was the arrival of another pioneer, of somewhat 
kindred though milder taste, in the Valley of the Ten- 
nessee, — a hunter rather than a warrior. Stories of the 
fertility of that region were circulated early after the 
American Kevolution. Hunters and adventurers, who 
had explored the wilderness, brought back glowing 
accounts of its unexampled loveKness ; its wide sweeps 
of luxuriant soil, clothed with the noblest of all forest 
trees ; its bold and gushing limestone springs, and 
swift streams abounding in fish or suited to ply the 
water-wheel ; its game of every variety, — the bear, the 
deer, the beaver ; and its pure and genial climate, 
locked in by the overtopping mountains of the soiith 
and east, which furnished picturesque views of the in- 
viting panorama. This was the favorite border hunt- 
ing ground of the Cherokees and the Chickasaws, 
which their rivalry had kept sacred from the posses- 
sion of either. An ineffectual attempt had been made 
as early as 1784, to settle it, by Colonels Kobertson 
and Sevier, and Georgia had actually erected it into a 
county, denominated Houston, after one of her earlier 
Governors; but it was not until July, 1805, that its title 
was ceded to the whites by the Indians. About that time 
an adventurous pioneer from Tennessee, named Hunt, 
penetrated the region, and, charmed by the beauty and 



98 ORATIONS. 

advantages of the spot, erected his cabin on a bold and 
elevated bluff overhanging an immense limestone 
sj)ring, which jDom'ed forth a large stream of clear 
crystal water, and around which the wild deer were 
wont to collect in great numbers, while he, concealed 
in the tops of the surrounding trees, could easily, with 
his faithful rifle, pick off as many as he wished of his 
favorite game. Soon other adventurers sought the 
spot, and a village sprang into existence, forming the 
nucleus of the population which flowed rapidly from 
Tennessee, North Carolina and Kentucky, into the 
adjacent fertile lands. Madison county was estab- 
lished in December, 1808, and the next year the vil- 
lage was incorporated under the name of Twickenham, 
after the villa of the illustrious author of the " Essay 
on Man,'' some of whose collateral connections were 
among its first settlers. But the democratic inhabi- 
tants did not fancy the poetical designation, and at 
the next session of the Territorial legislature, the 
original name of Huntsville, in honor of its first found- 
er, was restored to the picturesque and thriving 
village. It is no idle or uninteresting reverie to stand 
upon the summit oi Montesana, and, while gazing down 
upon the broad and cultured panorama of the Ten- 
nessee Valley, with its now flourishing capital, lying 
in a white and green mosaic of loveliness at your feet, 
thus to recall the incidents of the first settlement of 
North Alabama. 

But scarcely had the adventurous pioneers opened 
the woods and erected their cabins in the pine forests 
of what is now Clarke, Washington and Monroe 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 99 

counties, and in the distant and secluded recesses of 
Madison, when the period arrived, of the most terrific 
and destructive Indian wars that have ever occurred in 
the United States, baptising our soil with blood. It 
was my intention, while anticipating this address, to 
have dwelt upon the history and characteristics of our 
Aborigines, as most forcibly illustrating my theme. 
But no?i nobis nunc hoc jperficere. Time, and the 
evident though unavoidable tediousness of a narrative 
discourse, admonish me to forbear. I may however 
remark, that the Red Men of Alabama, if properly re- 
viewed, would be found to present more interesting 
facts and features, upon a more extended scale, than 
any other American tribes. The peculiarities which 
had ever invested the character of the Indian with so 
much romantic interest, making him the chosen child 
of fable and of song, were here exhibited in bolder re- 
lief than elsewhere. In numbers ; in the extent of 
their territories, all converging to the heart of our 
State ; in their wide and temfic wars ; in intercourse 
and traffic with the wliites ; in the mystery of their 
origin and migration ; in the arts, rude' though they 
were, which gradually refine and socialize man ; in their 
political and religious forms, arrangements, and cer- 
emonies ; in manifestations of intellectual power — 
sagacity and eloquence ; and in all those strange moral 
phenomena, which marked " the stoic of the woods, 
the man without a tear," — the native inhabitants of 
our soil surpassed all the other primitive nations, north 
of Mexico. The study of their history is 2)eculiarly 
our province, — for they are indissolubly connected not 



100 ORATIONS. 

only with the past, but the present and future of the 
State. 

Yes ! " though they all have passed away, — 

That noble race and brave, 
Though their light canoes have vanished 

From off the crested wave ; 
Though, 'mid the forests where they roved, 

There rings no hunter's-shout, — 
Yet their names are on our waters, 

And we may not wash them out ! 
Their memory liveth on our hills, 

Their baptism on our shore, — 
Our everlasting rivers speak 

Their dialect of yore !" 
'Tis heard where Chattahoochee pours 

His yellow tide along ; 
It sounds on Tallapoosa's shores, 

And Coosa swells the song; 
Where lordly Alabama sweeps, 

The symphony remains ; 
And young Cahawba proudly keeps. 

The echo of its strains ; 
Where Tuscaloosa's waters glide, 

From stream and town 'tis heard. 
And dark Tombeckbee's winding tide 

Repeats the olden word ; 
Afar where nature brightly wreathed 

Fit Edens for the Free, 
Along Tuscumbia's bank 'tis breathed 

By stately Tennessee ; 
And south, where, from Conecuh's springs, 

Escambia's waters steal, 
The ancient melody still rings, — 

From Ten SAW and Mobile ! 

The Thirty Battles, fought by Weatherford and his 
dusky followers, with Claiborne, Floui'noy, and Jack- 
son, and terminated by the treaty on the site of Fort 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 101 

Toulouse, in August, 1814, lost to the Creeks all their 
dominions west of the Coosa. The astonishing celerity 
with which the conquerors prosecuted the war is one 
of its most notable characteristics. The battle of Tal- 
lashatchee was faught the third of November ; Talla- 
dega, the tenth ; Hillabee, the eighteenth ; Autossee, 
the twenty-ninth ; Emuckfaw, the twenty-second of 
January, 1814 ; Echanachaca, or the Holy Ground, 
the twenty-third ; Enotichopco, the twenty-fourth , 
and To-hope-ka, or the Horse Shoe, the twenty- 
seventh of March. These, with numerous smaller en- 
gagements, almost exterminated the nation. Not less 
than four thousand waniors are believed to have fallen 
victims to their wild fanaticism and martyr-like 
courage. 

Alabama emerged, like Miriam, from the Ked Sea 
of her struggles, and now a new era of growth and 
prosperity began. The streams of population flowed 
rapidly into all parts of the interior of our State. I 
can follow only one, — for its present interest. 

The spot upon which we are assembled, with an in- 
definite strip of territory on both banks of the Black 
Warrior (originally called the Choctaw,) to its junction 
with the Tombeckbee,had been, from time immemorial, 
a neutral ground between the Creeks and Choctaws. 
Both tribes abstained from its occupancy. About the 
year 1809, however, a Creek Chief named OseecJie- 
ematJiIa, obtained permission from the Choctaws to 
establish a settlement near the falls of the Black War- 
rior, for the purpose of facilitating trade with the 
American Factory at St. Stephens, then under the 



102 ORATIONS. 

charge of Col. George S. G-aines. This settlementj 
which speedily grew into a village, was just below 
what is now known as New Town. Its Chieftain was 
in the habit of purchasing on credit, annually from the 
Factory, about one hundred and fifty dollars' worth of 
goods, which he retailed to the Indians. In the spring 
of 1812, he went to St. Stephens, and boasting of a 
great increase in his business, was extremely solicitous 
to obtain credit to the amount of $1,000. The suspi- 
cions of the Factor were aroused, and he refused to 
enlarge the bill beyond its ordinary size. That night, 
Tandy Walker, an old and astute Indian trader, 
gleaned from some of the incautious and maudlin com- 
panions of the merchant-chief, that the Creeks were 
preparing for war. The Indians departed with their 
goods, which were never paid for, as hostilities were 
commenced in a few weeks by the Battle of Burnt 
Corn, and the Massacre at Fort Mims. The Indian 
village of Tuscaloosa, so called from an immemorial 
family name among the Choctaws, soon witnessed 
some of the effects of the war. A party of hostile 
wandors had made an incursion into Tennessee, and 
after many murders, made prisoner Mrs. Crawley, an 
interesting and intelligent woman, whom they brought 
to Tuscaloosa and detained in captivity. News of her 
situation reaching Col. Gaines, he induced the fearless 
and adventurous Tandy Walker, to undertake her lib- 
eration. This he accomplished with a skill worthy of 
any of Cooper's heroes ; and the fair prisoner was safely 
conducted to St. Stephens, whence she was sent by 
that noble pioneer of our State, whose name is worthy 



ALABAMA HISTORY. 103 

of all praise for liis services at this period, — Col. 
Gaines, — to her friends in Tennessee. Tlie insolent 
savages at Tuscaloosa, not long after, met a deserved 
retribution. Tlie friendly Choctaws under Pushma- 
taha, with a band of Chickasaws led by Col. John 
McKee, subsequently for many years Kepresentative 
in Congress from this District — in October, 1813, at- 
tacked the village and reduced it to ashes, — most of 
the inhabitants having fled. The spot remained 
abandoned until after the war, when in 1816, the first 
settlers, Emanuel York and John Barton, from Ten- 
nessee, pitched their tents and raised their crops of 
corn on the beautiful upland plain where now stands 
the city of Tuscaloosa. The harvests of the next year 
were reaped by a considerable population ; the outlines 
of the future town were laid out ; and in January, 
1818, the Alabama Territorial Legislature, then in its 
first session at St. Stepliens, established the county of 
Tuscaloosa. The ensuing spring, Thomas M. Daven- 
port, an enterprising printer, commenced the publica- 
tion of the " Tuscaloosa Republican," a weekly news- 
paper, which in twelve months, took the name of the 
" American Mirror," which was continued to a period 
within the memory of many of my audience. 

The flight of the honey-bee is said to mark the pro- 
gress of the Anglo-American race ; but the presence 
of the printing press is a surer index of its growth in 
intelligence and refinement ; and, in this connection, I 
may state that the first newspaper ever published in 
Alabama, was the "Madison Gazette," at Hnntsville, 
in 1812. " The Halcyon" was established at St. Ste- 



104 ORATIONS. 

plienSj 1814, by Thomas Eastin, who became the first 
Tenitorial printer, executing the Laws and Jom^nals 
of the first Legislative Assembly. A man named 
Cotton commenced the earliest newspaper at Mobile, 
in November, 1816. It was called the " Mobile Ga- 
zette and General Advertiser.^' In 1820, '' The Clar- 
ion" was published at Claiborne; " The Free Press,'' 
and the " Alabama Watchman" at Cahawba ; and 
the ^' Kepublican," at Montgomery, by J. Battelle. 
These were the exponents and avant couriers of the 
rapidly increasing intelligence of their respective com- 
munities. It may also be added, that " Green Acad- 
emy," at Huntsville, still in existence, w^as the first 
organized institution of learning in Alabama, having 
been incorporated by the Mississippi Temtorial Legis- 
lature, in November, 1812. " Washington Academy," 
in Washington county, had been chartered a year pre- 
viously, but did not go into operation until some time 
after. From these simple primitive sources — these 
small Castalian fountains, — originated the streams of 
knowledge, which now, with more than the fertilizing 
influence of the Nile, and with richer deposits than the 
golden sands of the Pactolus, irrigate our soil, and 
flow with a converging wealth and beauty, into that 
noblest of Southern educational institutions, the Uni- 
versity of Alabama, thence to difiuse throughout the 
State, as has already been done, despite the cavils of 
the insolent and the ignorant, in the persons of her 
Alumni, the noblest of influences for the promotion of 
the intellectual, moral and social welfare of our people. 
Standing here, with the bridge of time behind me. 



ALADAMA HISTORY. 105 

which I have crossed for this presence, — after an ab- 
sence of more than twenty years, — with its memories 
and its merits crowding upon my mind, and the ex- 
emplars of its excellence all al)Out me, and chief of 
them, its distinguished President, (the Rev. Dr. Manly,) 
who is about retiring, amid the regrets of the whole 
State, from the station he has so honored and adorned, 
I can but exclaim, 

'■ Salve magna pai' ens, Satnrnia tellus, 
Magna virum /" 

This local termination brings me to the conclusion 
of my address. Have I not, Gentlemen, sufficiently 
vindicated the claims of our history to the study and 
research of our scholars ? Have I not shown that, 
though obscured through hither neglect, by the fast 
gathering twilight of time, and buried amid crumb- 
ling rums and accumulated dust, it has treasures, the ; 
richest, to repay for exploration and development ? / 
There is a chamber in the Manmioth Cave of Ken- 
tucky, whose stalactites are said to be luminous. It 
is thus with the almost subten-anean halls in w^hich j 
the memorials of our past lie concealed. We i)us]i our 
way through the dimness, and across the barriers, to 
our French, Spanish, British, Aboriginal, and Anglo- 
American eras, and by patient effort and studious toil 
advance until their long hidden beauties hang brilliantly 
before us. The lovers of literature, in all its depart- 
ments, find there the precious metals, which might be 
moulded into all the most graceful and elegant forms 
of thought. The stimulants to an intelligent and ap- 



106 ORATIONS. 

preciative love of country are there. Shall these 
treasures continue to lie unused and unregarded ? 
This Society becomingly answers the question. It has 
undertaken to supply for our State what Sallust lamen- 
ted as wanting at Eome. Its members are performing 
an important public service, and will receive the thanks 
of posterity. To their own minds also, their exertions 
will be productive of benefit ; for, as the gi'eat English 
morali&t has happily said, " whatever withdraws us 
from the power of our senses ; whatever makes the 
past, the distant, or the future predominate over the 
present, — advances us in the dignity of thinking be- 
ings." Go on, then. Gentlemen, energetically in your 
noble undertaking, consoled by the assurance that you 
are collecting the materials that shall illustrate and 
embellish the annals of your State, in the far distant, 
when they shall receive the plastic touch and vivifying 
breath of some future Xenophon or Polybius, some 
Tacitus or Livy, who, like the Hebrew prophet, shall 
bid the dry bones — live ! 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE : 

AN ORATION 

BEFORE THE 

^i ^appa anil gmosl^enian Socutita of the Snibcrsiiit of (Stor^ia, 

AT 

ATHENS, AUGUST 8, 1844. 



ORATION. 



Gentlemen of the Literary Societies : 

The return to scenes, with which we have been 
familiar in early life, constitutes much of the pathos 
and poetry of manhood. The changes time has made 
in each once familiar object, the developement into new 
life and beauty of some, the decay, the significant ab- 
sence, of others, impress us with mingled- emotions of 
pride and tenderness. We look with a calm gratifica- 
tion upon the improvements that have been made ; 
we mourn, with a patient sorrow, for those things, 
which, too obviously, have passed away from the earth 
forever. Such are my emotions to-day. You have 
called me back, from a distant home, over a wide in- 
terval of years, to the scene of my earliest collegi- 
ate life. I have come, gratefully, at your bidding, and 
find well-nigh all things changed about me. The 
unadorned edifice, in which prayer was wont to be said, 
and where the feeble voice first attempted to pitch its 
tones to the music of eloquence, has passed from the 
view, and this beautiful temple, with its architectural 



110 ORATIONS. 

elegance, now occupies the site. The fair village, that 
then lay in almost pastoral quiet amid its embowering 
trees, has become a populous town, the home of culti- 
vated wealth, and the mart of an active and far-reach- 
ing commerce. But the greatest changes have occurred 
with those who then gave life and social pleasure 
to the scene. Where are the young forms that bound- 
ed in the elasticity and luxuriance of untamed feeling, 
upon yonder grassy slope when last I looked upon it ? 
All gone and changed ; scattered through all parts of 
this busy, diversified land of ours. Some of them are 
holding high trusts in Legislatures and Congresses, 
winning proud reputations for statesmanship) and elo- 
quence ; others fill noble i)laces in the pulpit, and 
jorofessor's chair ; and I have met not a few amid the 
pine forests and wide prairies of Alabama, engaged in 
the hot-handed struggle, at the hustings or the bar- 
becue, for this or that presidential aspirant. But alas ! 
when I again have asked for others, I have been ans- 
wered, in melancholy tones, that their names have 
been carved, for many a season, upon the marble of the 
grave-yard ! 

One other remembrance comes before me at this 
hour. I see the form of the venerable individual who 
presided over this institution, at the period of my first 
entrance into its halls. Through a long life, he has 
devoted himself, with the love of a christian, and the 
capacities of a scholar, to the intellectual and moral 
elevations of the young men of the South. His ex- 
ertions have been most nobly rewarded. Hundreds, 
under his guidance, have passed up the paths of use- 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. Ill 

fulness, and reflected light upon the institutions of the 
country. He has been the foster-parent and vivifying 
spirit of this University. Now, — at the period to 
which I revert, — in the fullness of his fame, and 
while the sun of his life is sinking amidst the mellowed 
clouds of three score years and ten, he is about to 
sever his connection with this institution. I remem- 
ber the morning when we marched in procession to his 
residence, to take our leave of him. I see him stand- 
ing bare-headed beneath the grove, aflectionately 
grasping the hand of each student as we passed, and 
fervently ejaculating, in a voice tremulous with emotion, 
while the tears streamed from his eyes, " God bless 
you, my sons V A few years, — and the venerable 
patriarch was borne from the scene of his earthly use- 
fulness to the beatitudes of the Just ; but, while the 
walls of this institution remain, they will stand a fit- 
ting monument to the memory of Moses Waddell. 

At the same period, to which my memory now goes 
back, another distinguished individual shed the light 
of his intellect and the influence of his example, upon 
this commimity. Though his life was not spent in the 
quiet bowers of literature, but in the turbulent field of 
politics, yet he united much of the gracefulness of the 
scholar with the solidity of the statesman, and was ever 
active in the promotion of those enterprises, which have 
for their object the diffusion of intelligence and vhtue 
among the people. Neither the blandishments of office, 
nor the voluptuousness of foreign courts could corrupt 
his republican simplicity, and he was, in all the leading 
features of his character, the model of an American 



112 ORATIONS. 

statesman. This Georgia of yours owes him a debt of 
gratitude for his services in the federal councils, and 
not till talents and integrity, patriotism and stateman- 
ship are unappreciated in the land of Oglethorpe, will 
she neglect the fame of her Crawford. 

Not inappropriate to the subject, upon which I pro- 
pose to address you to-day, are these reminiscences of 
two of the most eminent men in the history of this 
State. They both struggled for the same end, — the 
elevation of the best interests of our country. The one 
sought to accomplish this by giving a proper impulse 
and direction to our political institutions ; the other 
placed his chief hope of regeneration, in the establish- 
ment and diffusion of an elevated intellectual system. 
The one was a statesman — the other a scholar. Herein 
then we recognize, to some extent, our subject, which 
is to include a discussion of the influence, upon mental 
developement, of the physical, social and political 
characteristics of our country, and which I therefore call 
Americanism in Literature. An enquiry into the 
modifications, which our forms of government, as well 
as our other peculiarities, are destined to work in that 
chiefest of a nation's interests, its inellectual efflores- 
cence, can never be devoid of interest on an occasion 
like this, if at all philosophically conducted. There are 
lessons kerneled in such an enquiry, for the instruction 
of the statesman as well as the scholar. 

But, at the outset, let us look a little into the legiti- 
mate purposes of both governments, and literatures. 
Mankind too frequently mistake these for ends, when 
they are only means for the achievement of an end. 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 113 

They are but instruments whereby to accomplish the 
great design for which man was created. And what 
is that ? Is it to hold Congresses, crown kings, wTite 
jjoems, fight battles, invent steam engines, or build 
magnetic telegraphs ? Oh no ! These are but epi- 
sodes in the great epic of immortality. There is a 
higher design, an ulterior purpose. What then is that ? 
I repeat. For what did God make man, and place 
him on this revolving globe ? Is there any key to this 
mystery of life and motion ? Why do the constant 
generations come and go athwart this earth like the 
waves of the sea upon a coast of breakers ? Why this 
ceaseless production and rejoroduction ? For wdiat was 
this great complex machinery of worlds, and centuries, 
and seasons, and souls, — thought, sunshine and vegeta- 
tion, — life, death, resurrection, — fashioned into shape 
and motion, and hung out in the heaven of time ? 
What good does it do ? What end can it accomplish ? 
Ah ! these are the old enigmas, which no QEdipus has 
solved. Reason, revelation, only let us know that man 
is an immortal, ethical being, and that the great law 
of his nature is incessant progress, — progress to the 
infinite, the eternal, the omniscient, the perfect. Ever 
onward, never attaining ! All things, when aright, 
move upward, unceasingly, (by a great spiral revolu- 
tion,) to the unattainable throne of God ! 

This moral law obtains in this world as well as in 
the next. Bards and prophets from the old centuries, 
have foretold and prayed for a state of intellectual and 
moral perfection ; not the wild dream of a Condorcet, 
but a social millenium, when between the smiling 



114 ORATIONS. 

hemispheres of beauty and refinement, the world 
should roll round in the warm flush, the purpureum 
Iwnen, of Divine intelligence and love. For this we 
implore when we say, " Thy kingdom come!" Not 
only do we invoke a moral dynasty, but also, an 
intellectual. The two must go together. God is all 
intellect, as well as all love ! Literature, in its purity, 
no less than I'eligion, is a scion of his beneficence, and 
one of his provisions for the redemption of man. All 
human institutions, whether intellectual or political, 
should contribute to this great law of progress. Un- 
less they are founded upon and vivified by its spirit, 
they have no right to be. They are tyi'annies and 
falsehoods, and should be extinguished. In eveiy 
enquiry then, as to the value or validity of a govern- 
ment or literature, we should measure them by this 
standard, judge of them by this rule. 

Bad governments and bad literatures tend ever to 
the demoralization of the human family. They not 
only retard, but roll back the wheels of progress. The 
old tyrannies, and their intellectual systems, were 
manifestations and promoters, not of civilization, but 
of barbarism. Kadically wrong in their whole philoso- 
phies of man and life, they led upward to no glorious 
zenith, but lay, like stagnant oceans, weltering in rot- 
tenness and error, breathing pestilence, woe, and degra- 
dation. This, in main part, is why man, in the sixty 
centuries, has risen so little above his primeval 
condition. 

But in modern times, a better philosoj^hy of both 
Government and literature has begun to prevail. 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 115 

Mankind have learned that governments are somewhat 
more than games or machines kept in curious motion 
for the amusement and edification of rulers ; and lite- 
ratures are beginning to be regarded, not as the phan- 
tasmagoria of poets and dreamers, the sunset scaffold- 
ings of fancy, but as something very far beyond that. 
The old secret has come out, that man's inunortality 
has already begun, and, by these things, you are mould- 
ing and fashioning him in his destinies forever. 

Surely now, no enquiry can be more appropriate or 
profitable than whether this American Government, 
this American Literature of ours, in what they are 
now, and are destined to be, correspond with the prin- 
ciples and designs of Providence, in the creation of 
man : that is, are they in faith with the great law of 
intellectual and social progression ? The question is 
double, but it may still be answered affirmatively. In 
my judgment, there has never been a social organism in 
which the two greatest motive powers of elevation, 
government and literature — for under literature I now 
include religion — were more happily accommodated, or 
gave " fairer promise of a goodly morrow,'' from their 
reciprocal operations, than in this young twenty-six 
headed giant of the West. Let Sydney Smith sneer 
as he may, but verily this Americanism of ours, with 
all its physical, historical and political aspects, is des- 
tined to be, as it already has been, a powerful influence 
on man, and will necessarily modify and fashion the 
literature of the world. Literature, in its essence, is a 
spiritual immortality ; no more than religion a creation 
of man ; but, like the human soul, while enduring the 



116 ORATIONS. 

mystery of its incarnation, is subject to the action of 
the elements, is the slave of circumstance. In the 
sense in which I would now view it, it is the expression 
of the spiritual part of our nature, in its intellectual 
action, whether taking form in philosophy, history, 
poetry, eloquence, or some other braach of thought. 
The sum of all this, in any nation, is what constitutes 
her literature, and it is always modified and colored by 
the peculiarities about it. As the river, sliding under 
the sunset, imbibes, for the time, the hues of the 
heavens, so the stream of literature receives, from the 
people through which it passes, not only the images and 
shadows of their condition, but the very force and direc- 
tion of its current. Every literature, Greek or Koman, 
Arabic or English, French, Persian or German, 
acquired its qualities and impression from the circum- 
stances of the time and people. The philosophic eye 
can readily detect the key, cause and secret of each, 
and expose the seminal principle from which they grew 
into their particular shape and fashion. The same 
scrutinizing analysis will enable us to determine the 
influences among ourselves, which are to operate in the 
formation of our literature; as well as to decide 
whether it will comport with those high spiritual requi- 
sitions which, I have already avowed, should be 
demanded from it. Let us then attempt to see how 
Americanism will develope itself in Literature. We 
shall discuss some of its preliminary conditions first. 
1. The physical attributes of our country are all 
partial to the loftiest manifestations of mind. Kature 
here presents her loveliest, sublimest aspects. For 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 117 

vastness of extent, grandeur of scenery, genial diversi- 
ties of climate, and all that can minister to the comforts 
and tastes of man, this heritage of ours is without 
a parallel. In its mountains of stone and iron, its 
gigantic and far-reaching rivers, its inland seas, its 
forests of all woods, its picturesque and undulating 
prairies, in all its properties and proportions, it 
might well be considered, in comparison with the East- 
ern Hemisphere, the work of a more perfect and benefi- 
cent artist. To the eyes of the Genoese mariner, 
the wildest dreams of Diodorus and Plato were more 
than realized. Seneca sang : 

" Venient annis 



Saecula seris, quibus oceanus 
Viucula rerum laxet, et ingens 
Pateat tellus, Typhisque novos 
Detegat orbes:" 

Yet not even in the miiTor of his prophetic fancy were 
these more than Elysian fields glassed with all their 
beauty and sublimity. Even the bilious British satirist, 
who could see no good in all our institutions, was com- 
pelled to confess that here 

" Nature showed 



The last ascending footsteps of the God !" 

Well-nigh all this vast expanse of fruitfulness and 
beauty, too, has been subjected to the control of civil- 
ized man. Our country has extended her jurisdiction 
over the fairest and most fertile regions. The rich 
bounty is poured into her lap, and breathes its influence 
upon her population. Their capacities are not pent 



118 ORATIONS. 

and thwarted by the narrow limits which restrict the 
citizens of other countries. No speculating theorist, a 
Malthus, Stultz, or Liceto, has cause, here, to appre- 
hend the dangers of over-population. Room, bountiful 
room, is all about us, for humanity to breathe freely 
in, and to go on expanding in a long future. — Do these 
things afford no promise of intellectual im]3rovement ? 
Are they no incitements to a lofty and expanded litera- 
ture ? Do they furnish no materiel for active, generous, 
elevated thought ? Is there no voice coming out from 
all this fragrance and beauty and sublimity, appealing 
to the heart and fancy of man, for sympathy, utterance, 
embodiment ? Why, it was once said, that the sky of 
Attica would make a Boeotian a poet ; and we have 
seen even " the red old hills of Georgia'" draw inspiring 
melody from the heart of patriotic genius. — Physical 
causes have always operated in the formation and 
fashioning of literature. In all the higher productions 
of mind, ancient and modern, we can easily recognize 
the influence of the climate and natural objects among 
which they were developed. The sunsets of Italy 
colored the songs of Tasso and Petrarch ; the vine- 
embowered fields of beautiful France are visible in all 
the pictures of Rousseau and La Mar tine ; you may 
hear the solemn rustling of the Hartz forest, and the 
shrill horn of the wild huntsman, throughout the crea- 
tions of Schiller and Goethe ; the sweet streamlets and 
sunny lakes of England smile ujDon you from the 
graceful verses of Spenser and Wordsworth ; and the 
mist-robed hills of Scotland loom out in magnificence 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 119 

through the pages of Ossian, and the loftier visions of 
Marmion and Waverly. 

Our country, then, must receive much of the cha- 
racter of her literature from her physical i)roperties. 
If our minds are only original ; if they he not base 
copyists, and servile echoes of foreign masters ; if we 
assert an intellectual as well as political independence ; 
if we dare to think for ourselves, and faithfully picture 
forth, in our own styles of utterance, the impressions 
our minds shall receive from this great, fresh continent 
of beauty and sublimity ; — we can render to the world 
the most vigorous and picturesque hterature it has ever 
beheld. Never had imagination nobler stimulants ; 
never did nature look more encouragingly upon her 
genuine children. In poetry, romance, history and elo- 
quence, what glorious objects, — sights and sounds, for 
illustration and ornament ! — I have stood, down in Flor- 
ida, beneath the over-arching gi'oves of magnolia, orange 
and myrtle, blending their fair flowers and voluptu- 
ous fragrance, and opening long vistas between their 
slender shafts, to where the green waters of the Mexican 
Gulf lapsed upon the silver-sanded beach, flinging up 
their light spray into the crimson beams of the declining 
sun ; and I have thought that, for poetic beauty, for 
delicate inspiration, the scene was as sweet as ever 
wooed the eyes of a Grecian minstrel on the slopes ot 
Parnassus, or around the fountains of Castaly. 

Again : I have stood upon a lofty summit of the 
Alleghanies, among the si)lintered crags and vast 
gorges, where the eagle and the thunder make their 
home ; and looked down upon an empire spread out 



120 ORATIONS. 

in the long distance below. Far as the ej^e could 
reach, the broad forests swept away over temtories 
of unexampled productiveness and beauty. At in- 
tervals through the wide champaign, the domes and 
steeples of some fair town, which had sprung up 
with magical suddenness among the trees, would 
come out to the eye, giving evidence of the presence 
of a busy, thriving population. Winding away through 
the centre too, like a great artery of life to the scene, 
I could behold a noble branch of the Ohio, bearing 
upon its bosom the already active commerce of the 
region, and linking that spot with a thousand others, 
similar in their condition and character. As I thus 
stood, and thought of all that was being enacted in 
this glorious land of ours, and saw in imagination, the 
stately centuries as they passed across the scene, dif- 
fusing wealth, prosjoerity and refinement, I could not 
but believe that it presented a nobler theatre, with 
sublimer accompaniments and inspirations, than ever 
rose upon the eye of a gazer from the summits of the 
Alps or the Apennines. 

Such are some of the physical aspects of our country, 
and such the influence they are destined to have upon 
our national mind. Very evidently they constitute 
noble sources of inspiration, illustration and descrijj- 
tion. For all that part of literature which is drawn 
from the phases of nature, from the varying moods 
and phenomena of the outward world, the elements 
and the seasons, they will be more valuable than all 
the beauties of the Troad or Campania Felix. Rightly 
used, they would bring a freshness and spirit into the 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 121 

domain of higli thought, which would revive it like a 
spring-time return, and we might take up, in a better 
hope, the exultation of Virgil,-^- 

" Jam ultima setas Cumali carminis venit, 
Magnus ordo sceclorum nascitur ab integro, 
Et jam Virgo redit, Saturnia regna redeunt !" 

2. These pleasant anticipations are also justfied in 
part, by the excellent and diversified character of the 
population of our country. Herein will reside one of 
the strong modifying influences of Americanism upon 
literature. Though our population is composed prin- 
cipally of the several varieties of the Anglo-Saxon 
stock, yet every other race of Europe, and some from 
the other continents, have contributed to swell the 
^ motley and singular combination. Coming from every 
quarter of the globe, they have brought with them 
their diverse manners, feelings, sentiments, and modes of 
thought, and fused them in the great American alembic. 
The stern, clear-headed, faith-abiding Puritan, the 
frank, chivalrous, imaginative Huguenot, the patient, 
deep-thoughted, contemplative German, — pilgrims from 
every clime, creed, and literature, — are to be found in 
contact and intercourse here. They interact upon 
each other to fashion all the manifestations of society, 
in thought or deed. The contrasts and coincidences, 
they present under our institutions, afford new and 
graceful themes for the poet, the novelist and the 
philosopher ; and the historian will have to give us 
f)ictures of life and humanity here, such as are found 
not elsewhere. I need but allude, in this connec- 
tion, to the existence of three distinct races of men 



122 ORATIONS, 

Tipon our continentj with their strongly marked pecu- 
liarities of conditon, color and history. The immense 
rapidity with which our numbers are increasing — well 
nigh doubling in every fifteen years ! — will produce an 
unexampled demand for knowledge, and act as a pow- 
erful impetus to its elevation. Already has the great 
and fluctuating intermixture of our jDopulation had^an 
influence upon the English language. In no part of 
'the world is our mother tongue spoken with such gen- 
eral ]3urity of pronunciation, as in our country. The 
constant tide of internal emigration tends to rectify the 
provincialisms into which stationary communities so 
frequently fall. Otherwise is it even in England. 
The whole kingdom is broken up into dialects as nume- 
rous as her counties ; and the respective inhabitants are 
almost as unintelligible to each other, as if they spoke 
languages radically distinct. Is it Utopian to expect 
the proudest results, when one common language shall 
be employed by the many millions who are to occupy 
this almost illimitable republic ? — But, it is upon the 
strong, industrious and wholesome character of our 
population, that the best hope of our national mind 
depends. Their habits of life will generate a muscu- 
larity of intellect, becoming their position and destiny. 
No effeminacy of thought or feeling will be tolerated 
among a people, composed of the choicest varieties of 
every race, stimulating each other to mental exertion, 
and accumulating wealth and power with almost mi- 
raculous rapidity and extent. Such a people, if they 
should have no powerful impediments, are better fitted 
than any other to render the world an intellectual illu- 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 123 

mination, and to bring round in reaKty the poetic 
vision of the golden age. 

3. Pass we now to the consideration of the most jio- 
tent influence of Americanism in Literature : the form 
and spirit of our political institutions. — If there is a 
truth strongly exemplified in history, it is, that free 
governments are the best calculated of any, to promote 
the intellectual and moral progress of man. Of all 
the vast tyrannies of antiquity, how few contributed 
to the advancement of letters ! There is not in exist- 
ence a line of verse or philosophy by Chaldean, 
Babylonian, Assp'ian or Phoenician author. Pop- 
ulous, powerful and magnificent as those kingdoms 
w^e, they yet stand in history like the huge pyi'amid 
of human skulls which Tamerlane erected before the 
gates of Damascus, great, dumb monuments of human 
misery and oppression. In beautiful contrast are all 
the free states of the past. Under their genial insti- 
tutions, the arts, the sciences and the refinements of 
life rose into prosperity and beauty, and, like the 
swinging flower-gardens of oriental sumptuousness, 
diffused a fragrance which still floats upon the breezes 
of history. This is particularly true of Athenian, 
Roman and Italian literatures. Just in proportion to 
the liberty existing among them at their respective 
eras, was the extent, the luxuriance of their mental 
developement. It is so in the nature of things. Ty- 
rannies are restrictions upon thought and its utter- 
ance. Their every influence must be directed to the 
suppression of those great truths of philosophy, re- 
ligion, poetry and life, which are the soul and efl3u- 



124 OBATIONS. 

ence of every genuine literature, and whicli great men, 
the prophets, and apostles, and martyrs of thought, 
are sent into the world to preach. It is true that, 
under monarchies, there have sometimes been glorious 
revelations of genius, learning and intellectual luxury, 
as in the eras of Augustus, Louis XIV., and Elizabeth; 
yet they were either outbursts of coming or going 
freedom, or contained, in themselves, but little that 
could add to the elevation or happiness of the mass of 
men. How few truths, tributary to the perfect law 
of life, were brought to light by any, the most gor- 
geous, of these intellectual dispensations ! 

But this government of om's is established upon 
principles more genial to the literature of humanity, 
than any other that has ever existed. The noble, 
broad, philosophic truths at the basis of our consti- 
tution, the rocks upon which our house is built, are 
all conducive to intellectual development. The fun- 
damental maxim, that all men are politically equal, 
which has done so much to elevate humanity, infuses 
into literature a new spirit, as well as into govern- 
ment. The man of genius now, however obscure 
his parentage, or humble his condition, can proudly 
hold up his head, in the light of the common sun, un- 
restricted, unabashed, by any of the miserable fictions 
of prerogative, and utter forth, in the emphasis of 
thunder, the solemn truths he has learned in the Pat- 
mos of his imagination, and which shall make all 
mankind feel that the propitious bend of the heaven 
comes equally close to every descendant of Adam. In 
its whole organism, our government provides for the 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 125 

unrestrained exercise of mind. This is the permeat- 
ing spirit of our political fabric. The sages and 
statesmen who received their lessons of wisdom be- 
tween the clouds and thunder, covering the Sinai of 
the Revolution, knew that literature had always been 
the truest friend of the rights of man, and they con- 
sequently provided, in all our fundamental charters, 
for the encouragement of the faithful instructress. 
Freedom of conscience, freedom of thought, freedom 
of speech, and freedom of the press, the essentials of 
literature, are the pillars of our national edifice. No 
other government has ever held out, in itself, so many 
incitements to intellectual action. There is a pervad- 
ing necessity for the application of high thought to 
its management, in every department. About its 
movements there is nothing of brute force ; all pro- 
ceeds under the guidance of constant, indispensable 
mental power. That old dumb, central principle of 
monarchies, about which Blackstone, De Lolme and 
Montesquieu were so much troubled, the absolute 
sovereignty, is here an active, thinking, vital essence, 
like the atmosphere we breathe, embracing all, yet in 
every man's bosom, and calling on each for the exer- 
cise of his intellectual faculties. The countless offices 
of our system, open equally to all, are so many spurs 
to enterprize. How wide and minutely diffused is the 
influence, — how constant, how potent ! All of us are 
daily invoked to the discussion and decision of ques- 
tions, in law, philosophy and economy, which demand 
for their proper adjustment, all the learning of expe- 
rience, and the profoundest operations of the mind. 



126 ORATIONS. 

Universal suffrage is, in its end, universal knowledge. 
Democracy is the parent of literature. Verily, under 
these aspects, we may aj)ply, in an intellectual, as well 
as political sense, to every Arderican citizen, the bold 
parallel which Wordsworth draws to the Highland 
freebooter : 

" The Eagle, he was king above, 
And Rob Roy, he was king below !" 

But, it has been said, that though our institutions 
thus hold out excellent opportunities and stimulants 
to intellectual exercise, they are yet prejudicial to 
literature proper, because of their almost exclusively 
political tendency. This is to some extent too true. 
Very evidently the greater part of our talent has 
hitherto been mono23olized by politics. But that has 
been owing chiefly to the infancy of our country. In 
the outset of a government so peculiar as ours, so com- 
plicated and popular, in which so many aiTangements 
without precedent had to be made, and so many appa- 
rently conflicting principles adjusted, it was natural 
that the talent of the country should be principally 
directed to the affairs of State. The shining names in 
our history, who had won distinction in our first politi- 
cal councils, became beacon-lights to guide the emulous 
spirits of our youths into similar careers. Both these 
influences have now begun to subside. Besides, nations 
in their infancy, like individuals, are aj)t to mistake 
the obvious and fascinating, for the useful and the true. 
As both advance in life, they acquire deeper and wiser 
lessons. So far, we have rushed headlong into politics, 
as much from the novelty of the attraction, as from 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 127 

any other cause ; and the intellectual stature of men 
has been measured more by the number of offices 
they have held, than by their solid contributions to 
the permanent thought of the country. This is a sad 
error, and must die out. As we grow older, we will 
learn that literature is a far nobler pursuit than " the 
vain, low strife, that makes men mad ;" and that the 
philosophers, historians, poets and scholars, the preach- 
ers and teachers, are the great men of the time. Poli- 
tics itself can never be a science, never more than a 
barbarian scramble for office, unless it is purified and 
rounded into form by the spirit of literature. Already 
have other nations learned the necessity of making 
their statesmen out of their scholars. At this mo- 
ment the illustrious Humboldt is prime-minister of 
Prussia, and in France, we see Thiers, Guizot, La 
Mar tine and Arago, all distinguished as authors, oc- 
cupying the most prominent political positions. 

This spirit, at no distant day, must obtain in our 
country. It is not our form of government or its ten- 
dencies, that are inimical to literature. It is the jDub- 
lic taste that is depraved, the public mind that is in 
error. Let these be rectified, as they are fast being, 
under the progress of intelligence — before the out- 
pourings from institutions such as this all over our 
country — and literature may have a Lazarus-Kke re- 
surrection in these occidental forests. Even now, if 
common justice were done to the authors of our coun- 
try, in protecting them from the piratical and nef\i- 
rious system of plunder from foreign authors ; if, guided 
by the plainest principles of justice. Congress would 



128 ORATIONS. 

allow the foreign writer, a copy-right to secure to him 
the labors of his own intellect, to which he is as honestly 
entitled as the jDeople of Alabama are to their cattle 
which may stray across the line into your Greorgia ; if 
we would protect ourselves from this "blue and yellow 
literature/' the scum of the French and British press, 
which is contaminating our morals, and depraving our 
minds ; if, in short we would be actuated by elevated 
sentiments of patriotism, justice, morality and love of 
letters, to the adoption of an international copy-right 
law, — we should have the heralding of as pure and 
noble a literature as ever dawned upon the eyes of 
Pericles or Tacitus, Ariosto or Addison. But ah ! 
the present Serbonian system is worse, far worse, in its 
morals and moral effects, than Mississippi repudiation ! 
4. Let us glance now at another aspect of Ameri- 
canism from which we may hope something for litera- 
ture. Our general government is constructed upon the 
principle of having as little to do as possible with the 
internal, domestic affairs of society. By its enumera- 
ted powers, its rightful province and jurisdiction are 
mainly external. Consequently, after the general, 
and, as they may be called, incidental influences, I 
have enumerated, and the fact that it guaranties to 
each state a re]3ublican form of government, it has but 
one specified provision by which it can encourage lite- 
rature ; that is the power " to promote the progress 
of science and the useful arts, by seciu-ing, for limited 
times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to 
their respective ^viitings and discoveries." Beyond 
this, the entire control and jurisdiction of all the vast 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 129 

territories of intellect, — the flowering Palestines of 
mind, — are left exclusively to the separate populations 
of the several republics composing the confederacy. 
Each State is the legitimate and only guardian of all 
the great interests of knowledge within her borders. 
Unlike the general government, she can do everything 
for the promotion of letters not prohibited by her con- 
stitution ; Avhile the former can do nothing, for which 
it has not an express gi'ant of power. This leaves the 
destinies of education, of literature, science, and the 
arts, in safer and more potential hands, than if they 
were confided exclusively to national control. In my 
estimation, our system of confederated sovereignties, 
one of the most marked features of Americanism, is 
peculiarly favorable to the production of a pure, earn- 
est, life-bestowing, beauty-breathing literature. Let 
us elaborate a little the reasons for this belief 

It was the benevolent desire of Henry the lY., to 
which he was prompted by the philosophic mind of his 
minister, Sully, to see all the kingdoms of the earth 
united in peace under one harmonious government. 
This generous vision, if feasible at all, could only be 
realized under some system similar to ours. Our con- 
federacy is susceptible of indefinite extension. The 
addition of new States tends but more firmly to confine 
the Union to its legitimate functions, and to diffuse 
wider, and wider, the blessings of democracy, peace, 
and security. Under no other organism, could these 
fundamental requisites of literature, be so extensively 
attained. A vast consolidated government could but 
ill provide for the comfort and welfare of its remote 



130 OKATIONS. 

parts. It could not meet the domestic wants and in- 
tellectual demands of its diversified sections, nor pro- 
portion its encouragements to the peculiar characteris- 
tics of the people and the place. What general sys- 
tem even of common-school education, would extend 
equally to all parts of this vast and motley Union ? 
The sun himself shines with a varying splendor upon 
the sands of Nantucket and the corn-fields of Alabama. 
In no vast, unbroken empire, has literature ever flour- 
ished. The gigantic despotisms of Asia are great 
Zaharas in the intellectual world. But one star illu- 
minates the darkness of that long, wide, Chinese 
night, — the star of Confucius. Eussia, with her teem- 
ing millions, has never struck the harp of Apollo, nor 
caught the glintings of the silver shield of Minerva. 
There they stand, in blank, grey stupendousness, like 
the sphinx upon the sands of Egyj)t, giving no answer to 
the questionings of intellect ! So evermore with these 
giant consolidations. Government must come down, 
and shape itself to the varying conditions of men. As 
with us, it must have its wheels within its wheels, 
each one, as in the vision of the proi:>het, vital with a 
distinct interest, yet moving out sympathetically to 
the whole. This then becomes disemban-assed of those 
minute details, and innumen-ble complex duties, which 
exist in every social system, and which have to be ob- 
served and nourished before a literature can be created. 
But this federated system prevents another detrimen- 
tal influence of consolidated governments. Wherever 
there is a great central capital, the whole intel- 
lectual wealth of the country, whether invested in 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 131 

Jiterature or politics, becomes accumulated in it. It 
forms a conspicious reservoir, to which all the foun- 
tains have to flow, before they can be distributed 
through the land. Imperious laws are there*given to 
the world of letters, and all other competition is 
frowned down and destroyed before the fashions of the 
metropolis. We see this illustrated in France and 
England. Before genius can find an audible utter- 
ance, it has to travel up to London or Paris : even 
such men as Johnson and Voltaire were not exempt 
from the necessity. They had to prune and warp 
their intellects to the whims of the book-pedlars and 
play-mongers in Grub-street, or the Rue de la Paix. 
So evermore : Every thing provincial is denounced 
and rejected. The best book, issued in Leeds or Man- 
chester, in Bourdeaux or Marseilles, is consigned at 
once to oblivion, before the literary dictatorship of the 
metropolis. No good thing can come out of Nazareth ; 
there is no divinity among Gallilean peasants. The 
result of all this is most pernicious. Poor genius is 
compelled to languish in obscurity in the provinces ; 
the God dies in the manger ; and the entire literature 
of the country, instead of being the large, fresh, oak- 
like growth of the heart of the whole people, becomes 
the dwarfed and noxious vegetation of a hot-bed of 
vice and effeminacy. 

These evil influences can never exist with us. Our 
institutions disseminate their influence through every 
portion of the Union. Each State has its own capi- 
tal, whence proceeds the legislation which is to de- 
velope and form the mind of its inliabitants. True, as 



132 0EATI0N6. 

yet, these several centres are weak and uninfluential ; 
but, as the States swell in power, wealth, importance ; 
as they begin to feel, each for itself, as every com- 
munity sooner or later must feel, the necessity for a 
home literature ; then the advantages of our distribu- 
tive system will be happily discovered. At the least, 
we shall always have a number of large cities in this 
Union, at remote points, with equal centrifugal forces ; 
thus preserving our literature from being concentred in 
one metropolis, while the rest of the country is left in 
comparative darkness, and the bright servitress becomes, 
as she too frequently has been forced to be, a vile 
pander to the bad passions of the enemies of free 
institutions. 

The rivalry and emulation which must always exist 
among the several States of the confederacy, will be 
highly favorable to literature. Each State will be un- 
willing to be surpassed by a sister in the promotion of 
letters. This feeling has already given rise to the 
many institutions for high learning which exist in our 
country. Even now we have well-nigh a hundred 
universities or colleges, a larger number than any other 
country upon the globe. These are the nurseries of 
that genius and talent, which must blossom into 
beauty, — into literature. The young men of each 
section will not consent to fall behind those of any other 
in those elevated achievements, which, while they shed 
a niorning-light of gracefulness over the institutions of 
their country, will make their own names as musical 
upon the lips of history as those of Cicero or Milton, of 
Thucvdides or Shellev. Everv one will strive to be 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 133 

faithful to the highest interest, the honor and dignity, 
the faith and lineaments, of his nourishing parent. 
The intellectual manifestations of each section will thus 
partake of the peculiarities of the State in which they 
may arise, its moral and physical phases, and thus our 
national literature, while, in its parts, it is stimulated 
by a generous rivalry, will imbibe an originality and 
freshness thereby, that will make it not unlike our 
national government, receiving its vigor and permanence 
from the individual prosperity of its component sover- 
eignties. 

The lessons of history, that experimental philoso- 
pher, might be quoted in behalf of the position that 
belles-lettres have ever flourished, to the greatest 
advantage, under an associated system of small, in- 
dependent States. But the illustrations are familiar, 
and I shall pass on, content with only pointing you to 
the contrast between the intellectual conditions of 
Greece and Italy, during the existence of their repub- 
lics, and when these were extinguished in the broad 
expanse of consolidated dominion ; as also to the 
history of the Swiss Cantons, the Hanseatic Towns, 
the Baltic Circle, and the present condition of the 
States of Germany. Though none of them can be com- 
pared, in excellence of j)olitical arrangement, with our 
country, yet it is certainly a significant fact that, in 
proportion as they have approximated to the system 
of confederated sovereignties, literature, science and 
art have flourished in their borders. Well, then, might 
Sismondi, in his glowing picture of the Italian repub- 
lics, a book every American should read, regret, with 



134 ORATIONS. 

a deep pathos, the extinguishment of their separate 
existence, as the stoppage-up of so many well-heads of 
moral and social refinement. 

We have now taken a general view of some of the 
principal features of Americanism, as I call it, — its 
governmental, social and physical aspects, — in reference 
to their influence upon the developement of literature. 
These, it must be admitted, are highly auspicious for 
the future, even if, as is too true, they have accom- 
2:)lished but little as yet. They must work out our 
intellectual redemption in the long to-come, and give 
us a republic of letters, as vigorous, symmetrical, 
lovely and expansive, as its kindred political system, — 
as the broad theatre upon which our many millions are 
to move. This new literature is to be something un- 
like any thing of the past. It is not to be a re-pro- 
duction of the worn-out articles of faith, philosophy, 
poetry, or fable, of antiquity. No, Grod forbid ! I 
would not reproduce here, if I could, that golden age 
of Augustus, nor those diamond days of Elizabeth, of 
which we have before spoken. No ! Americanism has 
a destiny of its own to accomplish in literature. It 
has to work out a system of thought, unlike any that 
has gone before, mirroring truly the new phases of 
humanity, of society, of government, that are here 
coming forth. The literatures of all other nations are 
entirely inadequate, unfit for Americanism. We mu^t 
have a literature congenial to our institutions, to our 
position, to our great democratic faith. This we want 
exceedingly now. We want a literature not unlike 
that which Milton, and Marvell, and Sidney, and 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 135 

Harrington, and Fletcher of Saltoun, foreshadowed 
in the times of the Protectorate : a literature, sailing- 
like a ship across the ocean of time, freighted with the 
noblest interests, the Manilla ransom of humanity, and 
bearing onward ever, all sails set, before the steady 
breezes of that old Millenial progress. Yes ! Ameri- 
canism is to achieve important modifications in the 
spirit and faith of literature. What some of these will 
be, it is not difficult to determine. 

Is it not singular that, in the six thousand years 
we have been upon the earth, so little has been estab- 
lished in political philosophy ? Few truths touching 
the rights or relations of man, the authority of rulers, 
or the best forms and essential princij^les of govern- 
ment, are of general reception even among the most 
intelligent and cultivated minds. The details of 
policy and practice are still more diverse and unset- 
tled. Well-nigh every government has proceeded upon 
some radically erroneous tenet. This has dislocated 
and disordered the whole machinery. Ours is the 
first that has squared its foundations according to the 
immutable laws of human nature. Taking for its 
polar-star, its watchword — " equality and justice to 
all,'' it has been enabled, in its spirit and practice, to 
comport with the requisitions of sound reason. Thus 
our government will be able to present to the world, 
not only the model of a system approaching perfection, 
but more correct and elevated postulates and maxims 
in political science, than have ever before been pro- 
pounded. This we must do, in justice to ourselves 
and our institutions. The verv text-books used in uur 



136 ORATIONS. 

schools and colleges, and by our law students, are 
filled with iniquitous sophisms and falsehoods. All 
other governments are bending their genius and learn- 
ing against the faith and polity upon which we prac- 
tice. It is ours to justify these in the eyes of the 
world, from the insidious as well as open attacks of our 
enemies, and to sow broad-cast the exalted principles 
of democracy, until every people, within the blue 
girdle of the sun, shall lift up their hands in joy upon 
their hills, and shout aloud, in the ecstacy of regener- 
ating freedom. Political philosophy is, as yet, scarce- 
ly a recognized science ; but I firmly believe that it 
is to be the destiny, as it certainly is the duty, of our 
country, to give to the world, lessons of wisdom, in 
both its branches, of ethics and economy, which will 
do more for the diffusion of truth, and the elevation 
of man, than any other influence since the writings of 
Luther and Melancthon. The Declaration of Inde- 
pendence was the first star of the morning, but it will 
be followed, in the figurative language of Shelley, by 
its " flocks of golden bees,'' until the whole sky shall 
be luminous with truth and beauty. 

Another great achievement for American genius, is 
to rectify the erroneous spirit of history. From the 
times of Herodotus to Hallam, all history has been 
written wrong. It has been, throughout, a specious 
and cunning defence of the assumptions of the few, 
against the rights of the many. Kings and courtiers, 
knights and warriors, Grhengis Khans and Coeur de 
Leons, — the tyrants and murderers of mankind, — ^have 
been made to walk in stately procession, through its 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 137 

dramatic scenery, while .the mighty people, each one 
more truly preserving the image of his maker, have 
been treated as so many dumb beasts of burden. 
Instead of being, as it was first called by Dionysius of 
Halicarnassus, " philosophy teaching by example," it 
has been, example distorting philosophy. Well might 
Sir Robert Walpole, in his dying hours, exclaim, 
*^ Read me not histoiy ; I will believe any thing but 
that." Verily, the world has always been imposed 
upon by these lying Books of Chronicles ! Look for 
instance, at the histories of the French Revolution. 
What writer has ever faithfully portrayed the spirit 
and incidents of that great struggle for the rights of 
man ! All have attempted to excite our sympathies 
for the stolid Bourbons, and the supercilious noblesse of 
the old regime, and to stir our indignation against the 
tumultous upheavings of long depressed humanity. 
Even Scott prostituted his fine genius to the miserable 
task of framing a distorted argument in defence of the 
aristocratic principle ; and Archibald Allison has re- 
cently strutted forth, in pompous tomes, to hurl his 
anathemas upon every manifestation of democracy, 
whether in France or America ! 

All this, I say, has to be rectified. The whole vol- 
ume of history must be re-Avritten in a different spirit, 
^^^th kindlier principles and a better fiiith. Our sym- 
])athies should be stirred in behalf of the suffering 
citizen, not the bloated despot : for the father toiling 
in the long afternoon of those days, gone a hundred 
years ago, to earn a scanty subsistence for his children, 
and not for the pampered patrician, revelling in wealth 



138 ORATIONS. 

acquired only by governmental fraud and extortion. 
This is the spirit of our institutions, and should, be 
the spirit of our literature. Written in this faith, 
what a change would take place in the j)hilosophy of 
all history, and chiefly of that French Revolution! 
No longer should we have it depicted only as a savage 
outbreak of the worst passions of depraved humanity, 
but, what it was, in some sort, an honest, faithful, yet 
.terrible, bloody, and dreadfully perverted struggle of 
an injured people to free themselves from the grinding 
oppressions of a long-continued loathsome tyranny. 
The heart-sickening excesses and hoiTors of the time 
would be charged, in the main, to those who attempted 
to resist and crush the po]3ular spirit. Through the 
whole fell, demon tragedy, we should see one benevo- 
lent purpose at work, like the memories of his youth 
in a bad man's heart, which would justify many acts 
now regarded with odium and reproach. What a dif- 
ferent estimate, too, would be placed upon some of the 
most conspicuous actors in that bloody drama. Robes- 
pierre is commonly represented as a fiend incarnate. 
This sentence, it has recently been contended, is, to a 
great degree, unjust. Those who knew him well, say 
that in the private and domestic virtues, in amiability 
of character, and in strong religious feeling, he was 
not the inferior of any of the cotemporary leaders of 
the Revolution. While it is admitted that he was 
driven, by the exigencies of the time, into many des- 
perate expedients, over which humanity must ever 
shudder ; yet it is contended that he was by no means 
the author of the long catalogue of crimes which were 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 139 

laid at his door. How the truth may be I shall not 
now pretend to determine ; but certainly we should 
receive the popular versions with some critical hesita- 
tion, when we reflect that the commentators upon 
Robespierre and the Revolution have, with scarcely an 
exception, been monarchists or aristocrats. They have 
delighted to heap all obloquy upon him and his party, 
because they were the ultra-republicans of France, 
and would hold no middle-ground short of unqualified 
freedom. It is success that turns the rebel into the 
hero ; and if those Jacobin clubs had succeeded in 
their effort to establish the broadest democracy, the 
name of Robespierre, instead of being cast out among 
men, as a synonyme for all that is brutal and bloody, 
might even, perhaps, have been recorded in history, by 
these sycophantic dispensers of fame, as one of the 
benefactors of the human family. 

To do justice to this great Revolution, as well as in 
all the other chapters of history, is a part of the mis- 
sion of Americanism. It is a noble enterprise, and, 
to my mind, presents a powerful inducement to the 
cultivation, by us, of letters. Already has a native 
author, of ample capacities, given us a glowing his- 
tory of our own country, and of connected events 
in Europe, conceived and executed in the right spirit, 
with a genuine philosophy. Two others, inspired 
by the same high faith, have thrown the sunlight of 
American genius, over kindred provinces of histoiy, 
and ])ecome honored apostles of the creed which I 
woukl inculcate to-day. Already the names of Ban- 
croft, Prescott, and Irving, are uttered by the genuine 



140 ORATIONS, 

lovers of the literature of humanity, with deeper re- 
gard than those of Tacitus, Livy, Hume, or Gibbon. 
When American genius shall, in a similar spirit, have 
encircled the whole field of the past ; drawn out 
from eras, governments and occurrences, their pro- 
per lessons of instruction ; weighed, in an equal bal- 
ance, emperors and peasants, conquerors and cap- 
tives ; and tried all by that great test of merit, — 
what have they done for human progress ? — then, and 
not till then, can history assert any claim to the 
attributes of philosophy. Oh ! ever be the past 
brought to us in its truth, that it may guide us aright 
in our wanderings through the future ! 

Other fields stand invitingly open, with similar 
persuasives for culture by American minds. Poetry, 
metaphysics, ethics, each and all, need accommoda- 
tion to the faith and polity adoj)ted here. In their 
spirit, their essence, not in their form and embellish- 
ment only, they are philosophic powers for the pro- 
motion of the highest hapj)iness. Hitherto they 
have achieved little of their proper evangelism in 
the world. They have stood, with the materialists 
of the last century, upon the external accidents of 
man, and reasoned inward to the soul ; rather should 
they stand, like angels in the door of that temple, and 
look out through its portals, upon the blue sky and 
the green earth, the revolving wheels and the inclined 
planes, the ethical positions and relations, that are 
framed and energized by the out-running laws pro- 
pounded in there. This spiritualism is the increasing 
faith of the age ; and it alone is reconcilable with en- 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 141 

lightened democracy. How it must manifest itself in 
the more ideal part of our literature, I would gladly 
linger to examine ; but we have tarried too long with 
these imperfect speculations, and must pass to a con- 
clusion. 

Though I have insisted that Americanism, in all its 
various phenomena, — in the magnificent and impe- 
rial spread of our countiy, its diversified climates, 
scenery, and productions — in the excellent character 
of our population, their raj^id increase and extension, 
•their hardy habits, and unity of language, faith and 
feeling — in the noble principles of our national consti- 
tution, and in the excellent arrangement and operation 
of our confederated system : — though in all this, I have 
insisted that Americanism is highly auspicious to lite- 
rature, and that in eveiy department of thought, there 
is imperious demand for the rectifying spirit ; — yet I 
would not be misunderstood. I have little faith in 
American literature, in its tendencies and achieve- 
ments, thus far. We have shamefully neglected alike 
our mission and its opportunities. A multitude of per- 
nicious influences, chiefly coming from our social con- 
dition, have checked and thwarted intellectual devel- 
opment. Some of these I have incidentally mention- 
ed ; the others need not now be enumerated. Suffice 
it to say, one of the strongest impediments has been 
the timid and time-serving spirit of the great body of 
the scholars of our country. Entrusted with the care 
and keeping of the ark of the intellectual covenant, they 
have yet suffered it to be polluted by the hands of the 
ignorant and vulgar, and have yielded themselves to 



142 ORATIONS. 

the blind infidelity, the anti-literary prejudice, of the 
day. Shame, shame, to the faithless disciples of this 
great religion of the mind ! They have sold them- 
selves and their salvation for thirty pieces of silver ! — 
It is to her scholars, — those whom her institutions 
have nourished into intellectual manhood, that a 
country has the best right to look for the preservation 
of her highest interests, and they should be willing, 
with Gallileo, to endure solitude, poverty, derision, 
even martp'dom, in behalf of the '^ good' old cause." 

Yes : the speculations we have indulged in to-day, 
look chiefly to the future. Come however slowly it 
may, a literature must come beneath these occidental 
sunsets. The influences enumerated, will work out an 
intellectual reformation, as certain as the laws of vege- 
tation, or the going round of the day-time. When 
the low philosophy and material purposes, now domi- 
nant, shall have perished, as they must, before the 
steady progress of education ; when the hundreds of 
scholars, who are annually poured out from our colle- 
ges and universities, shall have swelled to thousands, 
all faithful to the high interests committed to theii' 
guardianship ; when our literary men shall appreciate 
jDroperly the true dignity and nobleness of their voca- 
tion ; and when our country shall feel the old necessity 
of employing in her councils, her philosophers and 
scholars, instead of the brawling demagogue and vapid 
dunce ; — we shall have the fulfilment of the vision 
whose prophetic rays have touched our eyes to-day. 
The period may be remote, but its advent is certain. 
The cause of literature cannot be stopped. It is the 



AMERICANISM IN LITERATURE. 143 

cause of civilization^ refinement, virtue, religion, human 
progress ! Let us then abide in the faith that this 
country of ours, as she is destined to present to the 
world, the ])roudest spectacle of political greatness ever 
beheld, will not be neglectful of the other, the highest 
interest of humanity, its intellectual ascension ; but 
that both shall flourish here, in unexampled splendor, 
with reciprocal benefit, beneath the ample folds of that 
banner, which shall then float out, in its blue beauty, 
like a tropical night, brilliant with the stars of a whole 
hemisphere ! 



JACK-CADEISM AI\D THE FINE ARTS: 

AN" ORATION 



BEFORE THK 



LITERARY SOCIETIES OF LA-GRANGE COLLEGE, 



ALABAMA, 
JUNE 16, 184 1. 



ORATION. 



Gentlemen : 

In this age and country of ours, it requires a 
bold spirit to assert, amid the din and bustle of or- 
dinary life, — the stir of the market place, and the ex- 
citement of the exchange, — the pure and elevated 
claims of literature. The world, at least that portion 
of it which lies about our doors, is essentially mechan- 
ical The grinding of the mill and the rattle of the 
railroad constitute the music which is most comjDla- 
cent to the ears of men. Every other spirit is ab- 
sorbed in a feverish struggle for gain. " Put money in 
the pocket," — is the ruling precept of the day. 
Nothing, the value of which you cannot calculate in 
dollars and cents, is tolerated by society. The blot- 
ting-book and the ledger, the sliipping list and the 
broker's bulletin, make up the popular literature of 
the mass. 

This spirit rules in every department of life. Even 
the precincts once sacred to a better divinity have been 
violated ])y its approch, and ''the camp, the court, the 



148 ORATIONS. 

grove/' so sweetly devoted, by the Wizard of the 
North, to the gentlest faith of man, have yielded to 
its sullen dominion. It may truly be said to be the 
dominant Spirit of the Age. 

Every era has been denominated in history from the 
ruling characteristics of the people. Thus, we have 
the Golden Age of Augustus, and the Reign of Terror 
of Robespierre. Our time has received many appella- 
tions. By some, it has been called the Age of Me- 
chanical Science ; by others, the Age of Utility. — By 
none, even of its self-gratulators, or pseudo-perfection- 
ists, has it been denominated the Age of Moral Re- 
finement. Whatever appellation, the History Buil- 
ders of after time may give us, unless a deep regard is 
paid to the spirit I have mentioned, will be a gross 
misnomer. 

The manifestations, from which our era is to be 
distinguished, unlike those of antiquity, are confined 
to no one country. The world is not now, as it was 
some six centuries ago, spotted all over, like a tesselated 
pavement, by a thousand contrarieties of color ; by 
every diversity of purpose and ambition. Everywhere, 
from the land of Hong Foy and Houqua, the Tea 
Merchants, to the home of Sir Mulberry Hawk or My 
Lord Verisoplit, from the quays of Liverpool to the 
cabins on the Oregon, the passion for pelf, for money- 
making, is the arch monopolist, — the insatiable 
Neptune that eats up all other Gods. 

But it is in our own country, that this creeping 
autocrat has its firmest home. — We talk of the great- 
ness of these American States ; of their power and 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 149 

glory ; their commerce cresting every sea ; their agri- 
cultural and mechanical wealth ; their iron muscles 
on the land, and their great pulsating arteries ; their 
emigrants pitching their tents by the brackish waters 
of the far prairies, or felling forests through which the 
buffalo and moose had roamed unscared since the 
cradling of Time. All this is true, and more. But 
what is it all ? It cannot be denied that we have 
done much for the conveniences of civilized man ; that 
we have extended the arm of dominion over the ele- 
ments ; made them draw on the turnpike and spin in 
the manufactory. We have truly given man a right 
to the title of the Queller and Controller of physical 
nature. Yet, what does all this, in its best phase, 
imply ? Does it not all look one way, down one vista, 
to one end, — the accumulation of property ? Have 
not all our efforts been directed to the developement 
of the physical energies of the country ; to the im- 
provement of the national sinews, and not the nation- 
al mind, to say nothing of the national heart ? And 
has not the result, — ^boast of it as we may, — declaiim 
in heroics about it, as all may do, from the unbearded 
sophomore to the Elisha-like senator, — been but com- 
mensurate with the cause ? Loving my country wdth 
all the fervor and enthusiasm of a heart by no means 
cold ; loving her more for what she might and ought 
to be, than for what she is ; I must yet confess, with 
a lowering of pride, that I see, in her vaunted stupen- 
dousness, more of physical, than of moral or intel- 
lectual greatness ! 

If, from our country at large, we direct our minds, 



150 ORATIONS. 

under the same train of tliouglit, to the section in 
which we live ; this proud Southwest, the land of 
the cotton plant and the magnolia, the palmetto and 
the sugar cane ; how sad is the contemplation ! With 
all her acknowledged superiority in climate, in soil, in 
natural productions, in her mighty fretwork of naviga- 
ble rivers, in the intrinsic character of her pojDulation ; 
do we not find that she is thoroughly engrossed in the 
paltry passion for pounds and pence, and that her 
greatest proficiency is, to speak symbolically, in the 
limited philosophy of the ploughshare and the jack- 
plane, or the degraded cunning of the yard-stick and 
the packing screw ? You must pardon me if this 
language is too j^lain ; for I have a duty to do, and in 
sincerity it shall be done. 

Any one, who will cast an observant eye upon the 
j)ursuits of our people, will find how deeply this spirit 
of utilitarianism, as by courtesy of speech it is called, is 
ingrained in the very constitution of our society. All 
our occupations — professions and trades alike, — have 
ill view only one end. The great study of the farmer, 
the lawyer, the physician, the merchant, the mechanic, 
is how to double his profits. Even those in high 
places, — the legislators of the land, — would not "patri- 
otically serve the public" a day, if you withdi^ew their 
per diem allowance. This inordinate passion is like 
the lean kine of the dreaming monarch ; swallowing 
up every better purpose. It gives its hue and impress 
to every phase and feature of life. The parent, in the 
education of his child, must have him taught only 
those things, which will be of practical value ! Educa- 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 151 

tion itself is curbed and fashioned by the influence. 
After delving in a miserable way, for a few years, over 
the primary branches of instruction, the hopeful youth, 
now that he is bearded and built like his father, 
assumes the full stature of an educated man ; with 
just knowledge enough, neglected as it is ever after, to 
addle his brain, and engender a spirit of ignorant 
vanity, — self-chuckling and deaf, — which besets and 
debases his whole moral nature. The limits, which 
the law sets up between the man and the minor, being 
passed, or the Baccalaureal Letters Patent obtained, 
whoever heard of the student continuing his studies in 
our country ? He at once launches out into all the 
petty plans and speculations of '' the good old way, in 
which his fathers went." He loses all remembrance of 
the Pierian fountain, if ever he had knelt at its moss- 
covered curb-stone ; and remembers the beautiful days 
of his youth, only as so much time squandered in idle 
pursuits, under tyrannical taskmasters. This is the 
character of the greater portion of our youth ; and 
verily, it may be said, few of them are likely to die of 
that disease which Festus thought had afibcted Paul. 
The noble race of the olden scholars has never existed 
in our land. We know nothing of that generous order 
of intellectual Palestrge, who, from youth to manhood, 
from manhood to age, with an enthusiasm as deep as 
woman's love, drank of the golden waters of philosophy 
in the sacred gi'ove of Academe, or, in a later age, bent, 
with a fever at the heart, and a hectic flush upon the 
pallid cheek, over dingy scrolls, in the midnight quiet 
of a German University. 



152 ORATIONS. 

All tlie sentiments and habits of our people are at 
war with such a life. They regard purely intellectual 
pursuits in a man, as mere idle revery. They only 

" Bend the pregnant hinges of the knee 
Where thrift may follow fawning" — 

and, not comprehending, they despise the habits of 
that man, who gives his days and nights to Letters. 
Indeed, the opposition goes so far, that the man who is 
at all literary is deemed unfit for any practical part in 
life. No matter how great may be his intellect ; no 
matter though he could thread and untangle, almost 
with the ease of intuition, the thousand little intrica- 
cies, over which they blunder and fumble with painful 
perseverance ; he is yet elbowed aside in the press of 
life, to make room for men as far his inferiors, as the 
shrivelled shrub of a summer's garden is to the tempest- 
stemming pine. It is the fate of genius to be suspected 
if not despised ; and nothing is more common in all 
our village streets than to hear the sneering prophecies 
of the dunce and dotard — those human moles who ridge 
the footpath, — that such a one will never be of any ac- 
count in life ; for he is a literaiy man ! This is not 
the case in our country alone. " Beggary and genius 
have become proverbial synonymes with the vulgar of 
almost every nation ; and nothing is so distressing to 
the green-grocer or the butter-merchant, as the dreadful 
apprehension that his favorite son Jacky may yet turn 
out to be a Genius."* 

* W. G. Simms, — in the Magnolia. 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 153 

Such being the spirit of the community in which we 
live, it may be well said that it requires a bold spirit 
to advocate, within our borders, the cause of literature. 
Degrading to the land as the imputation is, it is never- 
theless true. The man, who comes out, upon any 
occasion, from the engrossing avocations of the day, to 
lift a voice in behalf of the better impulses of humanity ; 
who ventures, amid the frog-like croaking of the great 
marsh of society, above the buzz of the cotton-gin, the 
rattle of the bacon- waggon, and all the sounds of the 
workshop, the hammer and the yard-stick, — those 
Merlin sceptres of modern life, — to raise the low, sweet 
music of philosophy, is encountering a species of 
voluntary martyrdom ; is exposing himself to an ex- 
perimentum cruets, as stern as ever brutalized the 
streets of Avignon or Seville. 

And yet this spirit must be encountered. Every 
man, who loves his country, who loves his common 
nature, should do something to eradicate this curse ; 
worse than the curse of Adam, if not the full develope- 
ment of that curse itself : should use all his powers to 
remove this foul incubus which sits upon society, like 
the old man upon the shoulders of Sinbad, stifling 
every generous impulse, every noble eifort, and forcing 
poor man, proud man still, to plod through the ruts 
and ravines of life, as little conscious of the God within 
him, as the rude hut of the patriarch was of the angel 
it sheltered. 

As the potency of this spirit of utilitarianism is 
perhaps greater in our portion of the Union than any 
other : as it hero darkens and destrovs manv of the 



154 ORATIONS. 

better, if not the best, capabilities of humanity ; it 
here needs the most powerful resistance, — it is here 
that the strongest effort for a nobler philosophy should 
be made. What subject is worthier of our thinking 
men ; of our patriots ; of our philanthropists ? There 
can be none ; for it includes in its purview, man's 
whole social, moral and intellectual destiny. 

To you. Gentlemen, — a Brotherhood of Scholars, — 
the sunny waters of whose youthful affections are yet 
undarkened by the shadows of a colder creed, — this 
contemplation is particularly appropriate. You are 
shortly, from these ambrosial arcades, to step into the 
world, to participate in its practices and purposes, to 
move in its dusty whirl ; and I speak but the voice of 
many a man's experience, when I tell you that, if you 
yield implicitly to its requirements, if you do not, like 
a strong swimmer, stem a torrent's progress, it will be 
in vain that you have outworn long years of scholastic 
toil; that you have bowed with a deep reverence over the 
curious diagram ; that you have garnered instruction 
from '' TuUy's voice, and Virgil's lay, and Livy's 
pictured page 1" Worse, worse than wasted, will have 
been your time. You will individually become one of. 
a poor, pitiful, plodding race, — I speak in no unkind 
spirit, for I love every creature that partakes of the 
inheritance of our first Father, — who go through life 
in such a way as seemingly to sanction the bitter sneer 
of the caustic satirist, that the whole purpose of 
man is 

" To draw nutrition, propagate and rot !" 

Oh, let me, my friends, beseech you to resist this 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 155 

Oircean influence ! Let me, upon this occasion which 
you have so generously furnished me, iile a plea in be- 
half of a better faith. Let n^p, in short, point out the 
evils of this gross system of materialism, of Jack- 
Cadeism,''"' as it should be called ; its blighting opera- 
tion upon the noblest interests of our country ; as well 
as attempt to exhibit the best means of modifying, if 
not eradicating, its influence. Those means, I shall 
end/^avor to show, reside in a proper culture of the 
Imaginative Faculty, and in a generous encouragement 
of its visible manifestations, — the Fine Arts : to 
whose moralizing influence, I hold, we are to look for 
all our better hopes of intellectual or social excellence. 
This is one of the great truths of history. And when 
men forget the existence of any important truth, or 
suffer it to die out among them, they are forced, by a 
thousand resulting ills, to weep heavily over its tomb 
The pernicious influence of the utiltarian doctrines 
may be more forcibly illustrated by a reference to the 
moral condition of our section of the confederacy. 
There has been little variance among wi'iters in de- 
scribing the characteristics of our population. The 
whole corporation of European tourists, — from De 
Tocqueville, down, down, down to Captain Marryatt, 

*"Ca£?c. — Let me alone: — Dost thou use to write thy name'? or hast 
tliou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing man! 

Clerk. — Sir, I thank Go;l. I have been so well brought up, that I 
can write my name. 

-4//. — lie hath confessed — away with him — he's a villian and a 
traitor. 

Cade. — A way with him, I say; bang him with bis pen and ink-born 
about his neck." — Second Part of King Henry VL — Act 4. Scene '1. 



156 ORATIONS. 

— that Peter Simj)le on shoves — disagreeing in many 
things, have all concmTed in their portraitures of us. 
We are every where represented to be lawless, violent, 
irritable, haughty, vain, unsocial, quick of entrance in 
a quarrel, reckless of life^, heedless of the obligations 
of religion. A few of the ruder virtues are allowed 
us ; but they are such only as appertain to a semi- 
barbarous state. The picture is undoubtedly over- 
colored ; but many of its features may be found. 
Where did you ever hear of a country in which there 
were fewer of the incentives to the higher virtues ? 
A man must be honest, brave, industrious ; for these 
qualities are necessary in his trade or profession. He 
can't be trusted unless he is. But where are the 
motives to generosity, to benevolence, to charity, to 
courtesy, — " the old unbought grace of life," — to a 
refined and filial patriotism ? These certainly form 
no integral part of our social economy. They are all 
engulfed in the tide and temper of traffic. That 
spirit, whose approaches Edmund Burke so loftily 
lamented, is upon us. All our philosophers teach us 
to regard only those things which shall increase our 
store. This is our great motive principle. Under its 
influence the gentler virtues die. Eeligion herself — 
the beautiful embodiment of all the better rules of 
morals, with an infusion of never-paling divinity ; the 
sweet monitress that teaches us how much of heaven a 
good man may incarnate in himself, — is set aside or 
adopted as convenience dictates, and her elevating 
precepts fall upon the hearts of men, only like cold and 
scattered stars through the gloom of a northern he^iven 1 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 157 

The savans of our land have attempted to correct 
these evils by legislation. That is beginning at the 
wrong stage of the disease. They train up a child in 
the way he should not go ; and then they punish him 
for following the bent of his education. You may 
pile law upon law ; adopt penal codes, as systematic 
as the Pandects of Justinian, or as tyrannical as the 
tablets of Draco ; and yet you will produce little 
moral reformation. You must mind the seeds of the 
evil. The parable of the Tares is no unmoralized 
fable. A people, to become refined, must have some 
motive else than to grow rich. They must have some 
other catechism than Poor Richard's Almanac. 

We are usually told by flippant sciolists, that the 
way to correct these evils is by education. I shall not 
refute the assertion ; I shall not so sin against science. 
But if we are to understand by " education,'' that spe- 
cies of teaching commonly given to the mass of our 
youth, honesty must own that it is entirely inade- 
quate to such an end. At best, it is but a brief cul- 
tivation of the grosser faculties of the mind. To 
moral culture it has no relations. The feelings of the 
heart, the finer fancies of the intellect, are all left 
dormant, to perish in their sockets. There might be 
a nation of men highly educated upon the utilitarian 
plan, who would all be villains. Frankenstein's hero 
was composed of parts, each one perfect in itself, and 
yet their combination produced a demon. There was 
wanting a pervading spirit, a genial sympathy, blending 
the discordant members into one harmonious whole. 
So with a nation. Unless its constituent portions are 



158 ORATIONS. 

united by something more than a mere insulated excel- 
lence ; unless there is a refined fitness for each other ; 
a going-out of each in love and generosity through the 
whole ; in short, unless its virtues as well as its intel- 
lect be cultivated ; it will be but a chaotic mass of in- 
coherent materials : 

" Like sweet bells jangled, harsh and out of tune !" 

This is the great secret of civilization : and it is 
against this principle that Jeremy Bentham and his 
implicit discijoles have most deeply sinned. Their doc- 
trine not only blights the social virtues, by failing to 
cultivate their sources, but it would quench every exal- 
ted Literature. Adopt the maxim, that we are to 
pursue only those things which are of immediate practi- 
cal value ; whose utility can be computed by arithme- 
tic ; and you would extinguish the main glories of the 
world. Where would go the storied splendors of anti- 
quity ? They who carved, and they who dug ; the 
Cyclops in his smithy, and the tanner at his vat ; the 
utilitarians of Rome ; have perished entirely, leaving 
no epitaph to after times ; and yet the names of Cicero, 
and Virgil, and Juvenal, and Terence — of the unpro- 
ductive classes — still travel with the stars ; moulding 
opinion through all the Subsequent. These, the sage 
of Queen-Square Place would, with one of his solemn 
sneers, extinguish forever. 

The evil does not stop here. Its barbarous extent 
would obliterate every nation's proudest inheritance ; 
the fame of her scholars and literary men. Erase from 
the tablets of England's history, the names of Bacon, 



JACK-CADEISM.AND THE FINE ARTS. 159 

Milton, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Byron only, and 
how much of her glory would you extinguish forever ! 
What would he the harren heath and winding lochs 
hoyond the Tweed, without the moonlight halo that 
emanates from the pages of Burns and Scott ? — Eclipse 
the lame of Dante, Petrarch, Tasso, Aliieri, and Boc- 
cacce, and how the sky of Italy would he darkened ! 
Deprive Portugal of her Camoens ; Spain of her Lope 
de Vega, her Calderon, and Cervantes ; and what a 
pall of gloom would cover the Peninsula ! What 
would France he without Corneille, Racine, Rabelais, 
Montaigne, Voltaire and De Stael ; or Germany with- 
out Goethe, Schiller, Martin Luther, Herder, Lessing 
and Erasmus ? 

These illustrations show the absurdity of the doc- 
trine, as well as its pernicious influence upon Letters. 
In our own country, it has had a repressing influence ; 
has kept doAvn everything hke literary elevation. 
There have been occasional efibrts to develope our na- 
tive genius. ^' Prithee Poins V did you not speak of 
such a thing as Southern Literature ? Like the sound- 
ing of a bell in a vast wilderness, we have heard the 
faint chiuies of a scattered few, who would awaken us 
to an elevated devotion. They have been the neglec- 
ted prophets and apostles of an impracticable creed. 
The Jack-Cadeism of the day has quenched their vestal 
fires. '' Hang him with his pen and ink-horn about 
his neck," has been the constant verdict of om* back- 
woods' juries. Southern Literature indeed ! Lucus 
a non luccndo ! Throughout this broad, green, beau- 
tiful land of ours, as it is sometime rapturously called ; 



160 ORATIONS. 

from Mason and Dixon's, to Hunt and Carroirs line ; 
there is not one native author ; exclusively an author ! 
Yes J there is one : one of whom we may be justly 
proud. Solitary and alone, in this barren Patmos, he 
has been struggling for years, to develope and illustrate 
an indigenous literature. And well, though perhaps 
unrewarded, — certainly unrewarded by those for whom 
be has done the most, — has he accomplished his exal- 
ted mission. His numerous productions have arisen 
like a line of beautiful hills around the literary hori- 
son of his country. Could my voice reach him in his 
far home, amid the palmetto groves of Carolina, I 
would bid him — God speed ! in his proud vocation. I 
would tell him that he is a worthy herald of the noblest 
faith save one, — a sister spirit — that has ever brightened 
our common nature. Though his immediate coun- 
trymen may not appreciate his efforts ; though, like 
Dante, he may struggle in darkness ; I would tell him 
to remember Dante\s prophecy ; remember its fulfill- 
ment ! The time will come when the brow of the 
author of '' Atalantis " and the '' Yemassee," of " Melli- 
champe" and the "History of South Carolina" shall be 
crowned with the green garlands of unforgett'ing love ! 
It is in the history of our Periodical Literature that 
the influence of this iconoclastic spirit is most manifest. 
Many efforts have been made to establish among us 
the higher class of periodicals. They have all been 
ineffectual. The truth has been fully proven that our 
people do not want, — that they are positively unfit for, 
such intellectual establishments. How sad is the his- 
tory of the Southern Review ! For profound leai-n- 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 161 

ing, elegaat scholarship, lofty and generous criticism 
modelled upon the purest standards of taste and phil- 
osophy ; it was but little, if at all, inferior to the 
great Corypha3us, the Edinburgh itself. Its pages 
were regularly adorned by the most finished produc- 
tions of such minds as Legare, Cooper, Grimke, Elliott, 
Harper, Drayton, Hayne,.Nott, and England. Fear- 
lessly, eloquently, it defended our peculiar social econ- 
omy, and better constitutional creed ; wi*eathing at the 
same time, the graces of literature, like the myrtle of 
Harmodius, around the ruder implements of attack and 
defence. And yet, — though many of its articles were 
regularly translated into other languages, and read 
with rapture by the illuminati of the Continent, — it 
was permitted, by our all-patriotic population, to die 
by that most painful of all the processes of decomposi- 
tion — starvation. Ah ! how far below zero, our intel- 
lectual thermometer sank, the day those funeral obse- 
quies were perforaaed ! 

That such has been the result of all our attempts 
at literature is not strange. Our scholars, like our 
legislators, have begun in the wrong way. The minds, 
the feelings of the people must first be accommodated 
by a proper culture, before they will yield to the dy- 
nasty of either. That culture, we repeat, does not 
consist in the development of the grosser faculties of 
the mind alone. There are other and higher attrib- 
utes of the intellect. Man is not a mere Babbage's 
Calculating Machine. He has sentiments, feelings, 
emotions ; a love of the beautiful, the true, the sub- 
lime ; a yearning for immortality, an impulse to the 



162 OKATIONS. 

perfect. These, — the divine part of his nature ; the 
attributes of the unperishing essence, his soul, — the 
German metaphysicians have denominated The Ideal. 
Our writers, pursuing a less exact phraseology, have 
classed them as constituents or objects of a more fa- 
miliar term, the Imagination. Either phrase, if rightly 
understood, will answer our. purpose ; and it is in the 
cultivation of this faculty, in its most extended sense, 
that we shall insist, reside the only remedy for the 
evils of which we have spoken ; the only antagonist 
principle to the horrors of utilitarianism ; the only 
hope of social regeneration. For, — to use the thought 
of Frederick Von Schlegel, in his admirable "Philoso- 
phy of History,"'^ — "there can be no comprehensive 
culture of the human mind, — no high and harmonious 
development of its powers, and the various faculties 
of the soul ; unless all those deep feelings of life, — 
that mighty productive energy of human nature, the 
marvelous imagination, be awakened and excited, and 
by that excitement and exertion, attain an expansive, 
noble and beautiful form. Were the mental culture 
of any people founded solely on a dead, cold, abstract 
science, to the exclusion of all poetry, in action or 
thought; such a mere mathematical people, with 
minds thus sharpened and pointed by mathematical 
discipline, would never possess a rich and various in- 
tellectual existence ; nor even 23robably attain to a 
living science, or a true science of life." 

Under the influence of the popular philosophy, men 

*VoLl, p. 805. 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 163 

have come to greatly mis-a})preciate, if not wholly to 
misunderstand, the character and functions of the 
imagination. It is regarded, at its best, but as a gen- 
erous weakness of the mind ; an intoxicating mental 
champagne, generating vapors and phantasms in the 
brain, fit only for the amusement of children, or the 
idle gi'atulation of some love-sick girl. How false is 
the notion ! What injustice is done to the great mo- 
tive principle of all moral or intellectual excellence ! 

The human mind may be briefly divided into two 
grand departments : the Actual and the Ideal. The 
first regards things, — the plainer things of life, — only 
as they have been or are. Its speculations extend 
thus far, and no farther. The last prompts to every 
new and high enterprize ; to every improvement or 
discovery in art, science or feeling ; to every reforma- 
tion or regeneration ; to every thing " not of the earth, 
earthy ;" to every revelation of the hidden or futm^e ; 
to every effort or aspiration for the true, the beautiful, 
the immortal ! This is the imagination, and these 
are its offices. It urged "the world's grey fathers'' to 
all their efforts for civilization and refinement. It led 
them up to the summits of their rugged mountains, 
and pointed them to the far-smiling Palestines, beck- 
oning to perfection. It prompted the bare-footed 
Egyptian to the invention of symbols for thought, and 
taught the Asiatic sheep-tender " to imwind the eter- 
nal dances of the sky." Socrates, when he mused at 
the Bouquet of Plato ; Gallileo, before and after he 
recanted at the Inquisition ; Columbus, as he floated 
in his polacre, in the bay of Genoa, dreaming of a 



164 ORATIONS. 

means of realising the fiery Macedonian's last ambi- 
tion ; all felt its divine impulse. Leibnitz tells us 
that all his philosophy resulted from his Ideality ; and 
the apple-watching Newton caught the secret of his 
greatness from his imagination. It is, in short, an 
attribute without which perception is dull, memory 
weak, and judgment inactive. 

But we do not propose a dissertation upon all the 
offices of this faculty. Addison, in his finished prose, 
and his imitator Akenside, in his finely modulated 
verse, have adequately painted its pleasures. Our 
purpose is to show that its development, and culture 
should be more attended to in every system of educa- 
tion ; that this is peculiarly essential under our frame 
of government, — this "fierce democracie ;" — and that 
no people ever reached a refined social position with- 
out a cultivation of the faculty itself, and particularly 
of its external manifestations : the Fine Arts. 

It is in these manifestations, that this imperial fac- 
ulty, which dwells in the recesses of the bosom, like a 
hermit in a cave, has accomplished its triumphs. 
The Fine Arts have, in all ages, been the main civil- 
izers and refiners of man. Before letters were in- 
vented. Poetry trembled from the lips of the wander- 
ing bard, sanctifying the rude heart of the attracted 
barbarian : Music, as in the metaphoric story of Or- 
pheus, calmed the bestial passions and roused the 
timid virtues into play : Painting caught the fleeting 
vision, and hung her miracles upon the walls which 
Architecture and Sculpture had adorned. These, — 
the arts, which that beautiful poetry of religion, the 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 165 

early Greek mythology, embodied in the forms of the 
Muses, as a part of its faith, — the unphilosophical 
have usually regarded as the effect, and no part of the 
cause, of civilized refinement. I have looked at the 
chronicles of the past, with an erring eye, if this be so. 
True, we usually find the Arts in their most palmy 
prosperity in periods of the greatest social splendor. 
But they had originated long before. They were but 
glowing in the sunshine of that day whose meridian, 
— whose long unstooping, Joshua-like meridian, — they 
had accelerated. 

Every era of great excellence will be found to have 
been preceded by the enlarged development of one or 
more of the Fine Arts. Homer, whoever he was, — 
" whether," as Dr. Parr says, " he was Homer or some- 
body else," — flourished long before the sabbath of Gre- 
cian glory. He sang his martial stanzas in a rude and 
unlettered country. They, w^ho heard his metrical 
chant, at first paused from curiosity to listen to the 
ravings of the blind old Sciote. The boys hoot : the 
maidens titter : the utilitarians of that day, the 
bullock-driver and the pulse-gatherer,— where are they 
now ? — sneer. But he strikes up a bolder and a wilder 
strain. He tells of Hector's bravery, of Helen's beauty, 
of Priam's woes. — Their hearts become entangled in 
the song. Now a strain of fervid patriotism ; now a 
gush of genial sympathy, of generous pity, of expanded 
benevolence ; now a burst of fiery indignation at 
imholy wrong, at sacrilege, at fraud, at cowardice, at 
tyranny, — roll upon the mild air of that ^.gean even- 
ing. Like Roderick Dhu before the highland harper, 



166 ORATIONS. 

their hearts have sympathized in every note of the 
bhnd, old poet. Think you that they did not lie down 
that night in their wretched hovels, better and braver 
and more generous and patriotic than they had been ? 
Models of excellence, — ^ideal it is true but not unat- 
tainable, — were swimming in their hearts, were pic- 
tured before their imaginations, which in long days 
after, when old Melesigines had passed away, had a 
moulding and glorious influence, had their full revel- 
ation in the age of Pericles ! 

This is undoubtedly, when taken in connection mth 
the sister arts, — the paintings of Zeuxis, the sculp- 
tures of Phidias, and the friezes of ApoUodorus, — the 
philosophy of Grecian history. 

Other eras exemplify the same truth. It is some- 
what singular that the greatest poet of modern times 
arose in the dpa-kest hour of the world. And what an 
upward impulse did he give to man ! In that long 
night of ages, — the ten centuries of degradation, — 
when humanity " had lost all her original brightness," 
what hope was there for the world ? The gorgeous 
crests of Koman and Grecian glory had, like the hosts 
of Pharaoh, been whelmed completely from the sight : 
and no Miriam struck her harj^ of triumj)h and prom- 
ise above the cold, Lethean waters. From the holder 
of the keys of St. Peter to the beggar in the lazaretto, 
all was squalid ignorance, sensuality and crime. At 
this dejected moment, a fliint sound, like a ringing 
cymbal, is heard in tlie West. Nearer it comes, until 
it swells into a hymn of indignation and triumph ! It 
speaks of hope and redem^ion to man. It lashes vice 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 167 

in her high places. Tyranny and bigotry tremble at 
the omen. The clouds break away , and a faint dawn 
for humanity is seen in the east. Need it be said 
that that song was the Divina Commedia ; that that 
poet was Dante ? 

This is the origin of the Kevival of Letters. The 
poet gave an impulse to the painter, to the statutary, 
to the architect. The Fine Arts began to revive ; 
and, from the course they took, the Keformation — so 
essential to clear away the last shadows of the ages of 
delusion, — was brought about. There can be little 
doubt, — though it has seldom been awarded him, — 
that Dante did as much to reform the abuses of the 
Eomish chui'ch, as Martin Luther. He depicted, in a 
language never equalled for music and persuasion, all 
the long-accumulated evils of the Papal hierarchy. 
With a boldness unsurpassed even by his own heroes, 
he rent the veil of the unhallowed temple. Neither 
the cap of the pontiff, nor the horned bonnet of the 
bishop, was free from the sarcasm of his verse. With 
a well-becoming joy, he dared to consign several of the 
boasted Vice-regents of Jesus themselves, for their 
unnatural crimes, their open infidelity, to the tortures 
of his Inferno! Nor was it upon Religion alone, but 
upon Liberty and Literature, that he had an awaken- 
ing influence. " He was the congregator of those great 
spirits that presided over the resurrection of learning ; 
the Lucifer of that starry flock which, in the thirteenth 
century, shone forth from republican Italy, as from a 
heaven, into the darkness of the benighted world !"■••■ 

* Shelley's " Defence of Poetry," p. 51. 



168 ORATIONS. 

Nor are these triumplis confined to Poetry. The 
other Arts have, in many instances, had as manifest 
an influence for good. Who can doubt that much of 
the mystic literature of Egypt ; much of the peculiar, 
refined character of her people ; much of her social 
and political economy, was derived from the influence 
of her strange and gigantic architecture, her wild but 
polished sculpture, and her finished painting ; so early 
established and patronized by her kings ? The fabled 
harp of Memnon was but an emblem of the exquisite 
music, which the constellated arts daily infused, like 
a gift of sunshine, into the hearts of the people. 

The most notable instance, history furnishes, of so- 
cial, political and intellectual superiority, is in the 
Democracy of Athens. There never was an instance 
of such thorough and diffused reflnement. Destitute 
of the beneficence of nature, she had made art supply 
the deficiency. That statesman, who could make a 
modern state equal to hers in every excellence, would 
possess a cunning superior to Macchiavel or Metter- 
nich. And yet, what seems to have been the secret of 
her excellence ? Will it not, upon a philosophic view, 
— not such a coujp d'ceil as that intense sensualist, Bul- 
wer, has taken, — appear to have resulted from the en- 
couragement given to the Imaginative Arts ? Mod- 
ern commonwealths far transcend her in all the exact 
sciences, in a control over the energies of nature. 
They have, in the cant phrase of Brougham, the 
schoolmaster abroad in the land : but is it not to be 
feared that his teachings are more like those of Teddy 
O'Rourkft, the Irish tutor, — wild lessons of blundering 



JACK-CADEISil AND THE FINE ARTS. 169 

and folly — than the training and perfection of the 
moral man ? Say what we will, the barren little pen- 
insula, between mount Cith^eron and cape Sunium, — 
with her violet crowned city, — far excelled any modern 
state in her whole social and educational polity. Let 
us, for the sake of illustration, transport ourselves in 
fancy, like the Abbe Barthelemi, to her territory, in 
the time of her power and glory. 

We are entering the gates of Athens. Down the 
broad street, that opens before us, a crowd is collected 
around the portico of a temple. Let us approach. — 
They are gazing with delight upon an architect who 
is erecting the statue of a divinity. As the beautiful 
form displays itself against the sky, they shout the 
name of Praxitiles. We wander on by graceful tem- 
ples and elegant dwellings, beneath whose colonnades, 
priest, and poet, and philosopher, and artist, and ora- 
tor, and rhapsodist are mingled in indiscriminate con- 
versation. In a little while we enter a spacious grove. 
How tastefully adorned ! Gay crowds are wandering 
through its shady walks. Now they collect in the 
centre ; and Plato arises to speak of the immortality 
of the soul. Among the audience you see many who 
are distinguished. That small, old man, with the 
long beard, dressed much in the style of a Carmelite 
friar of the present day, is Diogenes. Yonder meagre, 
lank young man, with the red eyes, is Aristotle, the 
Stagyrite. That pale, delicate, scholarly-looking youth, 
who so continually shrugs his shoulders, like a French- 
man, is Demosthenes. Others of no less reputation 
are around. From the Academy, we proceed to the 



170 ORATIONS. 

Lyceum. What a profusion of matchless paintings 
and sculptures deck its walls. Pericles is illustrating 
the powers of eloquence, and propounding the laws. 
Thence we seek the Theatre. First a tragedy of 
iEschylus, and then a comedy of Aristophanes : each, 
unlike our modern dramas, illustrating some important 
moral truth. Now for the house of Aspasia. She 
gives to-night, one of her ambrosial feasts. The col- 
lection of philosophy and wit would make Madame 
Kecamier, or the Countess of Blessington, die of envy. 

Such is a day in Athens !* Such were all her days! 
Can any modern university boast so excellent a system 
of education ? What wonder that her citizens were 
the most refined population on earth ! 

But we need not resort to these pictures of the past 
to illustrate the esthetic influence of the arts. What 
Athens was, Kome, from the same cause, in a later 
day became. The rude passions of her populace were 
humanized and refined by the presence of the Muses. 
The habitual contemplation of the beautiful tends to 
soften the asperities of the heart ; and make its stony 
places gush with the waters of charity and love. This 
is the Philosophy of the Imagination. Its beautiful 
revelations, whether in verse or stone, upon parchment 
or canvas, have ever been the most eloquent preach- 
ers of morality. They are so from their nature. Di- 
recting all their radiance to the heart, they awaken 
its holiest sympathies. They rouse the passion for 



* Macaulav, in one of his essavs, has a similar scene. 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 171 

the pure, for perfection. No man, with such gentle 
ministrants of good, such graceful persuasives to re- 
finement, could be content to live and die as though 
he had no soul. 

In a survey of the Fine Arts, it would not do, to 
pass unnoticed the epoch of their greatest modern 
perfection. As has been said, Dante was the prime 
reviver of the Imaginative Arts. He was soon follow- 
ed by many worthy disciples. Petrarch and Boccacce, 
in the flowery wilderness of song ; Michael Angelo, 
and Raphael, and a host of others, — whose footsteps 
are yet beautiful upon the mountain tops of history, — 
in painting, and scul23ture, and architecture, — enriched 
Italy with the proudest wonders of art ; and elevated 
her to a lofty position in the university of nations. 
This made her capitols " the cities of the soul,'' and 
drew the pilgrims of every literature, of every art, 
from Shelley to Thorwalsden, to drink at her immortal 
fountains. We cannot linger over her teeming history. 
It is one of the most brilliantly illuminated pages in 
the chronicles of man. There the plastic arts exem- 
plified their influence in the conversion of a barbarous 
people into a refined, intellectual community ; and 
left a lesson for all the succeeding. But to nations, 
as that solemn plagiarist, Coleridge, has said of indi- 
viduals, " experience is like the stem lights of a ship, 
illuminating only the track over which they have 
passed." Few modern statesmen have treasured the 
instruction. Napoleon, who, if he had not been Eu- 
rope's mightiest conqueror, would perhaps have been 
her first philosopher, did not overlook the lesson. 



172 ORATIONS. 

When lie had erected the architrave of his stupen- 
dous power, he saw that one thing was wanting to 
adorn, to endear, the edifice. Under the guidance of 
Canova, he struck upon the right secret. He at- 
tempted to fill the Louvre with the treasures of 
Italy. — But alas ! the pedestals of his power were too 
slippery with blood ; and he only left the collections 
of his genius to brighten and beautify the reigns of the 
stolid Bourbons. And what an influence must they 
have had upon the mind, and, that most social of all 
its manifestations, the manners, of the French people ! 
The most imaginative of English-essay writers, 
William Hazlitt, has finely described the effect that 
the reccollections of the Louvre had upon him. 
"Wherever I was,'' says he, "they were with me, 
above me, and about me, and hung upon the beatings 
of my heart, a vision and a joy unutterable. There 
was one chamber of the brain, at least, which I had 
only to unlock and be master of boundless wealth, — 
a treasure-house of pure thoughts and cherished recol- 
lections. Tyranny could not master, barbarism slunk 
from it ; vice could not pollute ; folly could not gain- 
say it. I had but to touch a certain spring, and lo ! 
on the walls, the divine grace of Guido appeared free 
from blemish, — there were the golden hues of Titian, 
and Raphael's speaking faces, the splendor of Rubens, 
the gorgeous gloom of Rembrandt, the airy elegance of 
Van Dyke, and Claude's classic scenes lapped the 
senses in Elysium, and Poussin breathed the spirit of 
antiquity over them. There, in that fine old lumber- 
room of the imagination, were the Transfiguration, 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 173 

and the St. Peter Martyr, with its majestic figures, 
and its unrivalled hmdscape back-ground. There 
were also the two St. Jeromes, — Domenichino's and 
Correggio's, — there stood '' the statue that enchants 
the world," — there were the Apollo, and the Antinous, 
the Laocoon, the Dying Gkidiator, Diana and her 
Fawn, and all the glories of the antique world,"-^' 

What liner school lor moral refinement or classical 
instruction could exist, than the opened doors of the 
Louvre .? 

Among the Moderns, there is one nation at least 
that has been philosophical in her social structure. 
We usually regard the Germans as a dull and phlegm- 
atic race ; yet, in the true science of life, they are 
far our superiors. In domestic polity they have few 
equals. Although, through a disregard of the maxims 
of Malthus, they have an over-teeming population, 
yet, unlike the Irish, they are not in a constant state 
of fermentation ; the lowest dregs of society welling 
up, and muddpng the whole social system. Their 
youth are early fashioned into virtue by the influence 
of imaginative culture. Music and poetry are made 
a part of their common school education. You cannot 
travel through a town in Hesse Darmstadt or the Cir- 
cle of Meissen, without hearing the pleased tinkling 
of the laborer's guitar, as he pauses from his toil at the 
evening twilight ; or the sweet song of the maiden, as 
she blends the mild religious melodies of Klopstock or 
Burger with the busy humming of her wheel. What 



Tour through France and Italy.'" Chap. 4. 



174 OBATIONS. 

a transcendant social fabric ! What wonder that they 
have the richest, most varied and humanizing literature 
now known! What wonder that the heart of the 
German emigrant, amid our western wilderness, oft 
sighs, with child-like tenderness, for the joys of Fa- 
derland ! 

The instance of our great maternal progenitor is 
frequently pointed to, by the advocates of the ultili- 
tarian philosophy, in illustration of their creed. Great 
Britain is proudly called the mightiest demonstration 
of political and commercial power that the world has 
ever seen. This is perhaps true ; and this, to a great 
extent, may be traced to the culture of the mechanical 
sciences. But is this all ? Have no other ingredients 
entered into the composition of her social and moral 
condition ? Are the peasants of Cumberland, or the 
merchants of Threadneedle street, better citizens, bet- 
ter men, more patriotic, more liberal, more devoted to 
the domestic virtues, because, as Croly has proudly 
boasted, " the sun never sets upon the British domin- 
ions,'' or that the Cross of St. George has floated in 
triumph in the bay of Canton, or the steamships made 
a great turnpike of the Atlantic ? No ! For the se- 
crets of England's happiness, you must look to other 
sources. The myriad-minded Shakspeare, the gentle 
Spenser, the mighty Milton, the benevolent Words- 
worth, Lawrence, Keynolds, Hogarth, Chantrey, and 
West, have done more for human happiness and virtue, 
for fireside comfort and purity, for patriotism and phi- 
lanthropy, than all the inventions of Arkwright, or Bol- 
ton, or Watt, or Bentley. The sources of moral puri- 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 175 

fication are most usually silent and imperceptible in 
their operation. Like the sunshine, they give fragrance, 
beauty to the flower ; sparkle, freshness to the foun- 
tain ; music, blandness to the breeze ; health, bloom 
to the cheek ; and yet the whole process goes on with 
the calmness and silence of the old, mysterious bounty. 
There is no creaking of the axle ; no stirring of the 
dust ! Thus, for ages, have the benefactions of the 
arts been poured, like a river, upon the descendants of 
the old Saxon stock, — the inheritors of Kollo's Scan- 
dinavian blood. Who can tell the influence that the 
architecture of their old Gothic cathedrals, standing 
all over the island, living proofs of the antiquity, if not 
the authenticity, of their faith, has exerted, for ages, 
upon the religious character of the English people, 
from peer to peasant ? Has not Westminster Abbey, 
— that magnificent repository of the illustrious dead, 
and of glorious historic recollections, from the banners 
of the Armada to the Round Table of Alfred, — with 
its high and sculptured arches, its almost speaking 
statuary, — fashioned much of the manners and litera- 
ture of the white-cliffed isle ? What impulses to pa- 
triotism and patriotic valor ! He, who can overlook 
these things in an estimate of the seminal principles of 
national character, must be blinder than the blind old 
king of Corinth. 

These glimpses at other nations will verify the posi- 
tion that no people have ever attained an exalted 
character in literature or ethics, who have neglected 
the Fine Arts. Then, — to apply the lesson to our own 
country, —should -not greater devotion be paid to their 



176 OBATIONS. 

encouragement among ourselves ? Are we not sadly 
deficient in every thing like objects of taste or imagi- 
nation ? It has been said by a subtle soj)hist that 
these arts cannot flourish in a democratic government : 
that they are ungenial to its very nature. This, if 
true, would be, as it was intended to be, one of the 
strongest arguments against Kepublicanism. It would 
prove that there could be no refinement in a republic. 
But all history contradicts Montesquieu. It is pre- 
cisely in such a government as ours that the influence 
of the Muses is wanted to comjolete the system of social 
balances. A people to rule themselves must be virtuous 
and refined. They must have a taste for the graces and 
beatitudes of being. Their selfish propensities, — the 
primitive barbarism, — must be checked and removed. 
" The decent drapery of life" must be thrown over the 
deformities of nature. Loveliness must be made an 
attribute of their country, before they can love her like 
a mother. This is the moral which we, as a nation, 
have to learn. 

But, — to confine our speculations to the section of 
the republic, in which we live, — ^how vast would be the 
benefit of the Fine Arts to the Southwest ! We 
have seen that there is much in our situation to be 
deplored. The vices that mark us, are precisely such 
as would be removed by imaginative culture. An in- 
fusion of the atmosphere of Attica into our Southern 
breezes would regenerate the cKme. Our people would 
no more degrade themselves by organized violations of 
law, or be lashed into tempest by the miserable passions 
of the hustings. The cunning aphorism of Fletcher of 



JACK-CADP]ISiM AND THE FINE ARTS. 177 

Saltoun, — ^^let me make the sougs of a people, and 
you may make their laws," has recently been tested in 
our land. — Let those songs be the pure breathings of 
the vestal muse, and the great heart of the country 
would pulsate with virtue. If our public buildings 
were decorated with tasteful creations of art ; with 
noble pictures, breathing grand historic recollections ; 
with lofty statues, placing the images of our gallant 
ancestry continually before the eye, and sending, to the 
degenerate heart, by the mute appeal of a steadfast look, 
the noble precepts of their sacred legacy ; if, instead 
of that meagre, pinched style of architecture, — the 
double cabin, with the passage through the centre, — 
so common in all our towns, the graceful shafts of the 
Ionic, or the ornate entablatures of the Corinthian, 
the massive Doric, or the aspiring Gothic, won the 
admiring eye, an elegant taste would manifest itself in 
all the relations of life. The old fabric of humanity 
has to be disintegrated, or this must be so ! 

The beneficial influence of such imaginative culture 
would demonstrate itself in another respect. The 
wealthier portion of our f outh, instead of wasting their 
patrimonies in idle follies or flagrant dissipation, would 
have higher and better objects. So much superfluous 
wealth, indeed, would not be expended on the favorites 
of the Turf, — some Leviathan colt or Pacolet filley, 
or, — to descend in the scale of being, — upon the pas de 
seul or the pirouettes of a foreign danseuse. All that 
classical chit-chat about the pedigree and performances 
of a Bascombe or a Black Maria, or the swimming grace 
and abandoned voluptuousness of an Elssler or a Ge- 



178 ORATIONS. 

leste, would be terminated ; but other and nobler pur- 
poses and phraseology would engage the mind ; purposes 
and thoughts more worthy of beings who have already 
commenced the grand march of immortality. 

When a taste for the Fine Arts is fexcited among us ; 
when that mighty slumbering attribute of the mind, — 
its only immortal part, — the Ideal, is stiiTed ; and not 
till then ; may we hope for a native Literature ; a 
Literature that shall redeem and illustrate, this mighty 
sugar-cane and cotton-growing region. All previous 
efforts will be a wasteful dissemination of pearls. You 
might as well scatter, with the vain hope of vegetation, 
the delicate seed of the chrysanthemum or the dahlia, 
upon the sandy slopes of the Chandeleur isles. A few 
periodical works, — such as that noble Monthly, the 
Southern Literary Messenger, at Richmond, or its worthy 
collaborator. The Magnolia, at Savannah, — may be 
maintained by the untiring efforts of an exalted purpose 
uj)on the parts of the publishers ; honoring and beau- 
tifying the region in which they are issued ; but they 
will meet with no adequate and spirited patronage. 

The cultivation of the Fme Arts in our country 
being so desirable, it is the part of patriotism to inquire 
as to the means by which it can be promoted. 

We are apt to look too much to our National Gov- 
ernment for an interference in the affairs of life. Such 
an interference would be inconsistent with the purposes 
for which it was established. And yet, belonging as I 
do to the straitest sect of our political Pharisees, I can 
see no impediment to its extending a liberal hand of 
encouragement to objects of literature and art. The 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 179 

wild project of Joel Barlow, for a vast National Uni- 
versity, is perhaps too heretical for any political sect 
of the present day. But the General Government, in 
the exercise of its undenied powers, might do much, 
it has done something, for the Fine Arts. The capitol 
at Washington is a noble specimen of Architecture. 
Measures have been taken to decorate its halls and 
galleries with splendid specimens of the sculptor's and 
ixiinter's genius. Much more might be done. The 
various buildings through the country, — the custom- 
houses, arsenals, public offices, and the like, — might 
be made chaste models of taste and elegance ; and a 
generous love of the picturesque and beautiful be thus 
engendered. Surely, if the Federal Government had 
the authority to fit out the South Sea Exploring Ex- 
pedition, — so creditable to American character, — a 
fortiori^ it has the authority to promote, by similar 
means, the moral and social improvement of the people. 
There is one undoubted means by which Congress 
might readily promote the culture of the Moral Arts. 
It will be remembered that a wealthy foreigner, a 
younger son of the noble house of Percy, a few years 
since, made our government the trustee of a bequest of 
a half a million of dollars, for ^^ the increase and 
diffusion of knowledge among men." Over the dispo- 
sition of this trust. Congress has been squabbling for 
several sessions. What nobler disposition could be 
made of it ; better in accordance with the wishes of the 
testator ; than the establishment of a National Acad- 
emy of the Fine Arts ! Such an institution would 
give life and energy to the Arts. It would serve as a 



180 ORATIONS. 

solar center from which taste and refinement might be 
radiated through the land. Our artists would have a 
Louvre of their own, to which they might journey for 
instruction ; a shrine upon which they could fondly 
lay their offerings to Genius. The better stars of our 
country's destiny, grant that such may be the character 
of the Smithsonian Institute ! 

But it is by our State Governments that the most 
liberal patronage might be extended to the Arts. If 
that niggardly spirit of parsimony, which has ever 
marked our legislation, could be exorcised, we might look 
for generous results. Our public buildings would not 
linger in a half-finished condition ; as our State Capitol 
has, its bare walls nearly as blank as the minds of 
many of its occupants. What an influence, upon the 
deliberations of our Collected Wisdom, would several 
such noble paintings as TrumbulFs " Signers of the 
Declaration," or White's "Marion," exercise. The 
legislature of North Carolina sat a laudable example 
in the purchase of Canova's Statue of Wasington. Its 
destruction by fire, a few years since, is more to be 
regretted than the conflagration of the capitol itself. 
The last has been restored ; but of the other and nobler 
possession, we may well ask, " where's the Promethean 
spark that can that light relume ?" 

After all, it is not to our governments, state or 
national, that we are to look for the principal culture 
of the Fine Arts. Our social organization is mainly 
in the hands of the people. They must ^ weave and 
fashion their own destiny. If then, we would acquire 
the excellences of every civilized community, let us go 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 181 

about the work with the proper spirit and in the right 
way. Let the minds of our youth be properly instruc- 
ted; let more of the Ideal be infused into their education. 
They should be taught to love the beautiful and 
spiritual, as well as the practical. " What shall we 
eat, and what shall we drink, and wherewithall shall 
we be clothed .?" should not be the whole burthen of 
their song ; their tuition but the degraded pander to 
such a litany. If parents and teachers shall have a 
proper regard to the welfare of the young immortals 
under their guardianship, we shall, in the next genera- 
tion, have no deficiency in the noblest graces of a 
nation. 

It is, however, from our educated young men, that 
our country has the most to hope ; that she has the 
right to hope the most. Under the bend of a smiling 
heaven, she has bestowed upon them all the blessings 
of matchless political institutions. At the wells of 
olden wisdom, they have been led to drink. The 
lessons of philosophy, 

" Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose, 
But musical as is Apollo's lute," — 

have been instilled into their minds. Our country, — 
by no distorted figure of speech, — may be said to be 
looking to her sons, with an anxious, agonizing look 
for a requital of her favors. She has a right to insist 
that they shall not bend to the parricidal doctrines of 
the day. Many, many, many have yielded to the 
blandishments of the importunate sibyl. Forgetful 
of all the admonitions of history, they have caught 



182 ORATIONS. 

the epidemic of the age ; have been content to float 
with the tide, and pass away, after their little bicker- 
ings are over, to sw^ell but the drift-wood of the grave. 
This is an unhallowed perversion of all the i)urposes" 
for which they were educated. This is doing violence 
the best interests of their great Alma Mater. If 
our young men ; the thousands who are annually 
poured out from our universities and colleges ; were to 
pursue a different course, how much good might be 
accomplished for the country ! What centres of refine- 
ment and instruction might they be ! One true, gener- 
ous, unflinching, uncompromising, right-onward, scholar 
can make himself be felt in a whole community. 
Alone and unaided, he can do much to refine the taste, 
elevate the view^s, and beautify the structure of the 
society in which he lives. How much more might the 
co-operation of many such do ! By the establish- 
ment of lyceums and societies, they could easily dis- 
seminate better views among the people. The unread- 
ing w^ould listen from curiosity, and be unwittingly 
improved. To such institutions, we may look, as an 
easy means for the diffusion of the Imaginative Arts. 
Valuable collections of painting and sculpture, libraries 
of wholesome books, might be made at little individual 
expense. Let our educated men attend to these things, 
and we may have, at no distant day, the dawn of an 
elegant literature, — of a refined social state. The 
Southwest will no longer be mapped in the moral 
geography, as the land of barbarism and Bowie-knives ! 
But, as a part of the Omar-like philosophy of the 
day, a sentiment prevails in our community that the 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 183 

culture of the Imaginative Faculties is incompatible 
with tlie purposes of practical life ; that the man who . 
cultivates literature or the tine arts, even to the slightest 
extent, is unqualified for any thing else. This senti- 
ment, — the dread of it, — has kept many a man of 
genius, from pursuing the bent of his inclination. How 
gross is the fallacy ! It is true that there are many 
instances of men of purely imaginative minds, such as 
Chatterton, Savage, and Rousseau, who have, in the 
gratification of the amabills insania, neglected to pro- 
vide for the necessaries of life. It has been said of 
poets that poverty is " the badge of all their tribe.^' This 
results, not from any incapacity, upon their part, to 
meet the sterner labors of life, but from an exclusive 
devotion to the Muse. Disregarding the advice of 
Walter Scott, they make literature their sole depend- 
ance ; their crutch and not their staff. On the contrary, 
in all the principal professions, there are numberless 
instances of men of genius, who have not only discharged, 
with exactitude, all the requisitions of business, but 
liave found ample opportunity for literary exercises. 
These are the examples which w^e would place before 
the minds of our young countrymen, and incite them 
to imitation. 

Let us look to the dry and laborious department of 
the Law : the ''jealous mistress" as she is called by 
Coke ; into whose limits many of you will perhaps one 
day enter. Do we find that those, who have risen to 
the highest eminence of this profession, were mere 
technical proficients ? The incumbents of the Wool- 
sack, have, with scarcely an exception, been men of 



184 ORATIONS. 

letters. " The greatest, wisest of mankind" was no less 
the Chancellor of nature and art, than of English equi- 
ty. Though his mind was stored with all the '^ learned 
lumher of the law/' — from estates in remainder, 
to actions of assumpsit, — ^he still found time to develope 
the richest and most accurate philosophy, that the 
world has seen ; and his profoundest investigations are 
covered all over with the hues of poetry. Kun along 
the biographical annals of the English lawyers, from 
Sir Thomas More to Sergeant Talfourd, and you will 
find that all the most eminent cultivated the imagina- 
tion, as well as the reasoning powers and the memory. 
Blackstone acquired that polished elegance, that chastity 
of expression, which invest the beautiful system into 
which he brought the chaotic confusion of the Common 
Law, from a long experiment of the flexibilities of our 
language in poetic diction. His immortal Commenta- 
ries are rich with the colorings of fancy. There is not 
a haj)pier specimen of ideality in English poetry, than 
his extended comparison of the Common Law to an 
antique Gothic castle. Numerous other examples of 
literary excellence in lawyers ; of those who have loved 
to tread in the prim-rose paths of poesy ; might be 
drawn from the chronicles of legal life. They are not 
needed. Indeed, there is scarcely an instance of a 
lawyer, whose name has survived him ; who, in short, 
rose above the dead-level of green-bag mediocrity ; who 
did not court the Muses. Erskine, the Demosthenes 
of the modern bar ; Grattan, the eloquent defender of 
Irish liberty, — who '^ stood by her cradle and followed 
her hearse •/' Curran, who said that when he could'nt 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 185 

talk law, lie talked metaphor ; and Jeffrey, who raised 
English composition far above the range of Addison, 
and illuminated the pages of the Edinbm-gh Review for 
a quarter of a century ; are a few eloquent instances. 
There is one lawyer of the present day who should not 
be overlooked. Though the viginti annorum hccuhra- 
tiones have, with him, been more than doubled, still in 
the midst of all, — a crowded practice while young, heavy 
oflBcial duties in age, — he has found opportunity to do 
more than any living man, for literature and science. 
The coming age will receive much of its intellectual 
form and direction from the extra-judicial exertions of 
Henry Brougham. 

These instances, without reference to the similar 
lives of great American lawyers ; — to Wirt, Story, 
Webster, Butler, Gilpin, and the like ; ought to silence 
all cavillers, and convince our young men that, so far 
from being injured in professional attainments, they 
would be greatly benehtted, by an assidous cultivation 
of Letters. Let me not, however, be misunderstood by 
those who are going to this profession. The black letter 
should not be neglected for the illuminated text. 
Literature should be the embellishment, and not the 
substance of a lawyer's life. There will, however, to 
any habitually industrious man, be time and oppor- 
tunity enough for both. To none of my friends may 
the witty sneer of the English judge, upon the maiden 
effort of a young attorney, be ever applicable ; "Poor 
young man, he has read the wrong Phillips !" 

If the cultivation of the Ideal uf life is thus proved 
to be not incompatible with the " Perfection of Eeason;" 



186 ORATIONS. 

on still stronger grounds may it be shown to be not in- 
consistent with the other learned professions. Accord- 
ingly we find that the most distinguished lights of 
Medical Science, and of the Sacred Desk, have possessed 
refined imaginations and cultivated taste. Astley 
Cooper, Abernethey, Darwin, Abercrombie, Haller, 
Zimmerman, Ramsey, Mitchell, and a host of others, 
entitled themselves as well to the laurels of their tutelary 
deity, as to his secret healing spells. The Pulpit has 
ever been the friend of Letters. Its triumphs, in phi- 
losophy, in poetry, in eloquence, are so numerous that, 
when named in this connection, they come over the 
thought like thronging stars. Would that more of our 
Apostles would imitate the noble examples of Jeremy 
Taylor and Warburton, of the Wesley s and Clarke, of 
Irving and Hall, of Croly and Milman, of C banning 
and England, of Bascombe and Maffitt. Their divine 
mission could not be better promoted than by the cul- 
tivation of those branches of learning, which, like 
religion, refine and adorn society, improve the heart, 
elevate the intellect, and, in short, benefit and beautify 
all the relations of life. The dawn of the Millenial 
Sabbath can never come until the material purposes 
and barbarous philosophy of the present age are ex- 
changed for a more exalted and spiritual faith. 

In the view we have taken of the manifestations of 
the Imagination, we have said nothing directly of one 
of the principal ; the art of the Orator. Those only 
have been considered which are popularly included 
under the appellation of the Fine Arts. Eloquence, 
however, is as much an art as painting or architecture. 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FINE ARTS. 187 

It is one of the forms in which the Ideal of the soul 
elucidates itself In every age and country it has 
checked and guided the i)assions. From the tlirilling 
ciy of Demosthenes, " let us march against the man 
of Macedon," to the enthusiastic shout of Peter the 
Hermit, ringing all through the dark headlands of 
Europe, ^' Eescue the Holy Sepulchre ;" from the 
senatorial grace and energy of Mirabeau and Chatham, 
to the wood-notes wild of the Orator of Virginia ; 
from the calmness and dignity of Paul before Agrippa, 
to the fervor of the Blind Preacher, — '^ Socrates died 
like a philosopher, but Jesus Christ like a God !" — it 
has asserted its triumphs. Well might Chancellor 
Kent, in such a relation, say '' peace has its victories 
as well as war V For of all the victories which 
humanity has accomplished, there are none to compare, 
in moral sublimity, with those of the mighty orator, 
standing single-handed and alone, with no ally but 
his own internal energies ; standing calmly and boldly, 
with his brow unruffled and his form erect, in a tempest 
of opposition, upon some mighty moral Waterloo ; 
checking the advance of Wrong, and directing the 
marshalled masses about him, with the same ease and 
exactness of sway with which the sun whirls worlds 
around him, as if every ray of his glory were an arm 
of Titan power. 

We cannot stay to paint those victories. The field 
is illimitable. Eloquence has ever been the greatest 
of moral agents. From the pulpit, and the bar, and 
the forum, and the hustings, it has fallen like a wizard 
spell upon mankind. Alas ! how low is its state in 



188 ORATIONS. 

cur country ! To what a degradation has it been 
reduced, when the Congregated Wisdom of the nation, 
— occupying the places once held by the Fathers and 
Prophets of constitutional freedom, — can stoop for days 
to the vile vandalism of an Ogle, or the disgraceful 
diatribes of Doctor Duncan ! 

It would be ungenerous in a survey of the condition 
of the Fine Arts in our country, to negleCt the mention 
of some of our own artists who have shed honor upon 
the South. In the Cimmerian gloom which covers us, 
the name of Washington Allston shines like a star. 
The boy of Carolina, by the staunch liftings of an 
eagle spirit, — unaided and unencouraged, — has risen 
to the highest pinnacles of his profession. The stern 
voice of criticism, and the gentle lips of consenting 
beauty, even in the old Avorld, have hailed him as the 
Apelles of the age. When American genius is spoken 
of, abroad, the name of Allston is linked with Irving, 
and Bancroft, and Bryant. Of less reputation, but of 
no mean attainments in their profession, are Cogdell, 
Fraser, Crawford, Mills, and White, natives of the 
South : Avhile, from our kindred West, kindred in 
character and origin. Power, and Brackett, and William 
West have stepped to exalted niches in the temple of 
art. These have proven that, if our people would but 
encourage genius, we have material, native with us, 
from which a lofty intellectual Vatican might be 
erected. 

But we must hasten to a conclusion. You have 
been detained too long. Gentlemen, by this weak effort 
to depict the evils of the mechanical exclusiveness of 



JACK-CADEISM AND THE FIXE ARTS. 189 

the day ; its blasting effects, particularly in our section, 
upon morals, literature, and all the retined purposes of 
social life ; and by the attempt to show that those evils 
can only be eradicated, as they have been from all na- 
tions distinguished for a lofty intellectual and moral ex- 
istence, by a generous culture of the Plastic Arts. Yet 
the subject is one of vast importance. There is a Phi- 
losophy of the Imagination, — though never chaptered in 
Political Economy, — as i)rofound and as productive of 
extended practical benefit, as ever Ricardo, or Adam 
Smith, established for the grosser objects of sense. It 
is precisely such a philosophy we want most. We 
need no renewed incentives to traffic or accumulation. 
They are as strong with us as the all-compelling prin- 
ciple of gravitation. We want motives to loftier and 
less material creeds. I could not, therefore, upon this 
occasion, — when called to speak before those who are 
hereafter to stand, perhaps at the helm of State, cer- 
tainly at the helm of mind, in our land, — decline an 
effort to do something, however little, for principles so 
essential to our weal as a people ; so interlinked with 
all our better hopes and duties ; so pernicious if over- 
looked ; so fraught with happiness and excellence if 
rightly cultured. Their neglect is not merely a tem- 
porary evil. Every age bears, in some manner, within 
itself, the age that is to follow. If we would have 
our posterity intellectual and refined, we must begin 
the improvement. Oh, if we would but rightly act, 
what a glorious reversion might be theirs ! I am apt, 
in spite of all discouragements, to be enthusiastic upon 
the destinies of my country. When I look upon all 



190 ORATIONS. 

her giant physical resources ; her matchless political 
institutions ; and, more than all, when I cHng, with a 
prophet's fondness, to the belief that her people wiU 
yet waken up to the nobler purposes of social being ; 
I feel a pride in our plain democratic patrimony, which 
I would not exchange for aU the tawdy furniture and 
gilded trappings of aristocratic institutions. At such 
an hour, the young American patriot can, like the old 
Welsh bard upon the rock of Snowden, take his stand, 
as we now do, upon the summit of one of our over- 
]ooking mountains, and see, far off, through the lifting 
haze of futurity, the domes and turrets of a mighty 
people, flashing in the eyes of the gladdened sun ; the 
mingled harmonies of intellectual and religious excel- 
lence going up from every vale and hill-top ; social 
and domestic beauty covering the land like a smiling 
atmosphere ; each successive billow of time rolling up 
an accumulation of improvement ; and the whole 
mighty heart palpitating with virtuous emotions of 
pride and joy at the rapid strides which these young 
republics have made, and are still making, to perfec- 
tion. Heaven grant that such visions may prove 
something better than the wild dreams of Plato, or the 
Utopian fancies of More ! 



NATIONAL WELCOME 

TO THE SOLDIERS RETURNING FROM MEXICO 

Aisr ORATioisr 

gelibercii bo gipointnxtnt, al ^obile, gilabaniH, 

JULY 4, 1848. 



ORATION. 



When a Roman army had achieved some important 
victory, and returned to the city, accompanied by 
spoils and captives, the gratified inhabitants, with ex- 
ulting shouts, welcomed them at the gates, conducted 
them through the long and glittering streets, beneath 
flower-wreathed and sculptured arches, and, from the 
lofty porticos of the capitol, proclaimed that the occa- 
sion should be commemorated as a national holiday. 
In a kindred spirit, we have met, upon this our 
country's anniversary, to welcome the return of a por- 
tion of a gallant army, who, battling in their country's 
cause in a foreign land, have won laurels as glorious 
and brilliant as ever decked the brow of Roman con- 
queror or consul. The time is fortunately adapted to 
the occasion ; and we can but regard it as a happy co- 
incidence, that we should now be able to greet the 
return of the gallant soldier, the war-worn patriot, the 
choicest spirits of the fame-covered army of Mexico, 
amid the light and exultation of another Sabbath of 



194 ORATIONS. 

our political independence. Their deeds have served 
to elucidate afresh the primal splendors of this morn- 
ing of liberty ; and it is fit that we, while meeting 
around the old altars upon which were kindled the 
fires ofseventy-six, should mingle, with the gratitude 
and reverence we pay the sainted fathers of our l^nd, 
our admiration and our love for their worthy descen- 
dants who have lit the fires of freedom and fame anew. 
The lessona of the day would indeed seem to demand 
such an acknowledgment ; and even now, throughout 
all portions of this broad continental republic of ours, 
amidst the hymns of thanksgiving and shouts of joy 
with which the day has been hailed, is heard one uni- 
versal sentiment of praise and panegyi'ic for the heroic 
hearts who have placed the standard of the stars above 
those lofty palaces where once floated the golden 
gonfalon of Cortez, and was heard the wild music of 
the teocalKs of Montezuma. 

To the soldier himself, it must be particularly 
gratifying to be welcomed home amidst the national 
music ^nd patriotic ceremonials which attest that the 
lofty sentiments of liberty, the noble lessons of ances- 
tral wisdom, and the generous admiration for courage, 
patriotism and heroic self-devotion, are not yet extinct 
in the country of his birth and love. His own heart 
has recently received a new baptism and inspiration ; 
and it exults, like a young eagle, once more to soar in 
the breezes of freedom, and bathe its plumage in the 
rich sunlight of independence now spreading like the 
broad smile of heaven, over the green land of Wash- 
ington, from the rocky pinnacles of New England to 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 195 

the sunset-redclenecl waters of the Gulph of Cali- 
fornia ! 

With these emotions, we all, citizen, and soldier, 
hail another return of our national jubilee ! It has 
come under circumstances of peculiar and unprece- 
dented interest. Never before did our country, in her 
internal condition, as well as in her relations with the 
rest of the world, present herself in so imposing, so 
influential a position. Three score years and ten and 
two have passed since the establishment of her nation- 
ality, by the Declaration of Independence ; and in that 
period she has sprung up from a state of colonial 
vassalage to imperial magnitude and grandeur. The 
infant Hercules, which could scarcely strangle the 
serpents around his cradle, now stands almost like the 
Angel of the Apocalypse, with one foot upon the 
mounains of the East, and the other upon the waters 
of the Pacific, and proclaims to the world the downfall 
of despotism, — the tenuination of tyranny. 

This growth and extension of our country have no 
parallel in the history of the world. Man, under the 
influence of free institutions, seems to have been 
gifted with new power of increase and expansion. The 
thirteen meagre colonies that, in 1776, hemmed the 
Atlantic, %vith a population of scarcely three million 
of inhabitants, destitute of any of the higher advan- 
tages or opportunities of social, intellectual, moral, or 
political culture, have now become thirty flourishing 
States, with vast territorial dominions, more than 
treble their original size, bordering on all the seas of 
North America, and embracing a population of twenty 



196 ORATIONS. 

millions of souls, existing in the highest social and 
political condition, blessed by all the benefactions of 
science, art, literature and religion. 

Well may such a people rejoice on the birth-day of 
the nationality, which has given them all this. But 
it is not in this alone, nor in this chiefly, that the 
philosophic mind finds cause for rejoicing, upon this 
anniTcrsary. The Fourth of July gave birth to some- 
thing better than a nation. It gave birth to an idea, 
to liberty — to principles, never before recognized, 
without which all nationhood would be tyranny, and 
which are as essential to human happiness as the at- 
mosphere to the lungs, or religion to the soul of the 
sinner. These principles became incarnate in our form 
of government — we became the Messiah of the new po- 
litical creed, and we sent our doctrines into the world 
to preach the gospel to every creature. 

The world was slow to learn the lessons of trutk. 
Nations were like Saul of Tarsus, with scales upon 
their eyes, going on to the Damascus of despotism. 
Suddenly and of late, a light has shone out as from 
heaven upon the nations of Europe. The slumber- 
ing continent was heaved like a sea in a tempest. 
, Thrones and crowns, and sceptres — the regalia of roy- 
alty, the baubles and gewgaws of aristocracy, were, 
like the host of Pharaoh, swallowed up in the Ked 
Sea of. Eevolution. France sprung to republicanism 
in full beauty and symmetry ; and, from the orange 
groves of Sicily to the poplar avenues on the Danube, 
spread the great principles of our Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, " that governments are instituted among 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 197 

men only?for the protection of life, liberty, and the 
pursuit of happiness, deriving their just powers alone 
from the consent of the governed/' 
^/^ut, while well-nigh all Europe, — France, Italy, 
y^^ustria, Prussia, Holland and Belgium, at least, have 
(O^been illuminated by the radiance which beamed from 
the burning throne of the Bourbon, — by the Prome- 
thean fire that young La Fayette snatched from the 
altars of American Liberty, — it is melancholy to be- 
hold the oppression, the degradation, the darkness 
that have covered, with a foul eclipse, the beautiful 
but blasted land of Emmet, Grattan, Curran and 
O'Connell. The cradle in which has been rocked so 
many of the champions of freedom in every struggling 
' nation ; so much of the genius, eloquence and courage, 
which have illustrated and adorned the annals of our 
own country ; w^hich gave to us a Montgomery, an Ad- 
dis Emmett, and a Shields, — lies bound around by the 
Anaconda folds of our own ancestral tyrant ; and the 
world has recently beheld, in the full light of the 
civilization of the nineteenth century, before the eyes 
of all men, a gallant patriot, a man of soul and genius, 
for fearlessly daring to express Republican sentiments, 
for nobly asserting God's truth and God's freedom, 
snatched by the myrmidons of power from his house- 
hold altars, from the bosom of his fair wife, and the 
arms of his young rosy children, — condemned as a 
fnlon, and hurried off in chains to the hulks of Ber- 
muda ! Ah, sirs, this is the very subliniity of melan- 
clioly ! The incarceration of John Mitchel is a cloud 
that blots half the sun of the age. Great God ! shall 




198 ORATIONS. 

these things continue ? Shall Ireland always be the 
slave-yard of England and Famine ? 

Oh, blood of martyrs ! staining all her green, 
Soon may you wash her spotted garments clean 
The Harp of Tara ! soon may it pour forth 
The olden anthems thro' the island-north ; 
And Emmett's epitaph ring o'er the sea, 
Erin Mavoureen ! thou art free, thou art free 1 

But let us not sadden farther the enthusiasm of to- 
day, by thoughts like these. There is cause enough 
for exultation here in this Palestine of the West. Our 
country has passed through two full generations of 
manhood, and has signalized, both in peace and war, 
the stability of her institutions, and their capacity of 
extension at least to an entire continent. The croak- 
ing prophets of despotism told us, at the outset, that 
our government might work well upon a small scale ; 
that like a summer flower it would bloom in the peace- 
ful stmshine, but that it could not stand the storms 
of war ; that like a circle in the waters it would dis- 
solve by expansion ; that we would be weak,. distracted, 
and ineffective for any gigantic struggle with foreign 
nations. Thanks to the better wisdom of our ances- 
tors ; thanks to the sagacious pilots who have stood at 
the helm of the Ship of State ; thanks to the stout 
arms and bold hearts of our patriotic yeomanry ; 
thanks, es2)ecial thanks, to the gallant army of Mexico, 
the lie has been given to all such ill-omened forebod- 
ings. It has been proven that the machinery of this 
government, though, like the allegoric vision of Ezekiel, 
it has its wheels within its wheels, with nice and deli- 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 199 

cate arrangement, lias yet energy and power that can 
resist and overcome all attacks from internal or exter- 
nal foes ! I will not linger upon a consideration of 
its workings in the midst of peace ; but pass at once 
to a review of the spectacles which have been presented 
in the recent war with Mexico. This will be more 
appropriate to the present time and occasion. 

Three years ago, our country had been in a state of 
unexampled peace and prosperity for thirty years. She 
had gone on expanding in population and wealth, with 
magical rapidity ; sj^reading the waves of civilization 
all over the valleys and mountains of the west ; and 
making the wilderness and desert places to bloom and 
blossom like the rose. She was at peace with all na- 
tions. Upon her Southwestern border lay a young 
Kepublic, peopled by emigrants from her own bosom, 
that had won its independence and established its na- 
tionality in the eyes of the world, and had been recog- 
nised by all the leading nations of Europe as a free 
and separate sovereignty. For seven years it had as- 
serted its sovereignty from the Sabine to the Rio 
Grande, its defined limits in its constitution, without 
even an effort upon the part of its original rulers to 
exert authority or jurisdiction over it. It was as in- 
dependent then, according to the laws of nations, as 
the United States are to-day. This young Republic 
sought admission into our confederacy. By a public, 
peaceful act, we admitted her, with her constitutional 
})Oundaries ; but at the same time avowed our readi- 
ness to make all rightful reparation for any injury 
done, and to treat with the neighboring nation for a 



200 ORATIONS. 

proper line of boundary. This peaceful, prudent mea- 
sure, Mexico, the claimant country, notwithstanding 
her claim had expired by every statute of limitation, 
besides having been lost by an original action of eject- 
ment, chose to construe into an insult to her Castillian 
dignity. At once she sounded the clarion of war, and 
issued her national proclamation that she would not 
cease from hostilities till she had driven every Ameri- 
can, east of the Sabine. Suddenly, after months of 
secret preparation, she poured a large army over the 
Kio G-rande, and struck the first blow upon the soil of 
the United States. Congress, at once, with a unani- 
mity that presented but two opposing voices in the 
Senate, and but fourteen in the House, declared '' war 
to exist by the act of the Kepublic of Mexico,'' and 
preparations were at once made to conduct it to ^' a 
speedy and successful termination." 

Thus, by no fault of ours, we were involved in this 
Mexican war ; and we entered into it like Godfrey ol 
Bouillon, with the Holy Lance, into the field of Asca- 
lon, crying " God for the Right and the Just V The 
events that followed constitute the brightest an- 
nals in our history. Upon the fields of Palo Alto and 
Resaca de la Palma, at Monterey and Buena Vista, 
the heroic Taylor and his chivalrous little army per- 
formed feats of valor and prowess which hurled back, 
in ignominious defeat and confusion, the multitudinous 
hordes of Mexico, and covered the American name 
with a blaze of glory. The blessings of our people 
every where, of every faith, are resting like a beautiful 
diadem upon his brow. . 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 1201 

I cannot stop to depict the many thrilling incidents 
connected with these engagements. One only will I 
mention, as it is especially honoring to a gallant offi- 
cer, now within the sound of my voice, and whom Ala- 
bama is proud to claim as an adopted son. In the 
terrific battle of Buena Vista, when, wave after wave, 
the Mexican forces, confident in their overwhelming 
numbers, had dashed and broken upon our apparently 
devoted little army, which appeared about to crumble 
and sink before the repeated onsets ; when Santa Anna 
rallied his Aztec legions, his reserve corps, and brought 
them down to sweep all before him ; — then, when the 
standard of the ea^le and the stars was wavins; to and 
fro, like the torn sail of a sinking ship in a storm, 
then, at that critical moment, when O'Brien's battery 
had been captured — then, says General Taylor, in his 
official report, '' Captain Bragg, who had just arrived 
from the left, was ordered at once into battery. With- 
out any infantry to support him, and at the imminent 
risk of losing his guns, this officer came rapidly into 
action, the Mexican line being but a few yards from 
the nmzzles of his pieces. The first discharge of can- 
ister caused the enemy to hesitate ; the second and 
third drove him back in disorder, and saved the day!" 
Proud words, proudly won ! 

But it is with the incidents of the war on the South- 
ern Line, as it is called — with that brilliant series of 
victories, beginning at Vera Cruz, and terminating at 
fh(' city of Mexico, tliat we have chiefly to deal to-day. 
We all remember when the call for volunteers was sent 
through our land, like the fiery cross of Clan Alpir 



202 OBATIONS. 

througli the hills of Scotland. We all remember, when 
it was announced that the gallant hero of Queenstown, 
Chippewa, and Niagara was to lead the expedition, 
with what alacrity and enthusiasm the ardent young 
men of our country, following the heroic example which 
had been set them by our gallant veteran, Desha, re- 
sponded to the call of the government. They were 
anxious to emulate the deeds of their ancestors ; and 
the rusted sword of the Revolution, and the tattered 
banner of 1812, were again given to the sunshine and 
the breeze. Every section of the Union sent forth its 
contributions of energy and valor. It is not my pur- 
pose now to designate all of these, but it is proper that 
I should refer specially to one regiment, whose remnant 
— ah, sad word ! — whose remnant is before me. The 
citizens of Mobile had the proud pleasure to testify 
their admiration and regard for the Palmetto Regiment, 
as it passed through this city on its way to the war. 
It was then composed of more than a thousand men, 
headed by the gallant Butler, whose name was even 
then a synonyme for all that was valorous and noble. 
Long shall we remember the feast of patriotism and 
the flow of feeling, the gushing emotions, and the elo- 
quent words which marked our intercourse, on the day 
they embarked for the scene of operations. Proud an- 
ticipations and fond hopes were cherished that they 
would prove themselves worthy descendants of sires 
who had fought and bled at Eutaw, Camden, and The 
Cowpens. With similar emotions, we saw the gallant 
sons of Georgia, and the chivalrous spirits of our own 
State, pass through this city, for the beleaguered con- 



isATlONAL. WELCOME. 203 

fines of Mexico ; and their enthusiastic patriotism, for- 
titude and perseverance proved that they wanted but 
fair fields and favorable opportunities to have accom- 
plished as valiant performances as those that fell to 
the good fortune of any portion of the army. 

Time would fail even to enimierate the interesting 
events which now followed, adding to the impeiishable 
fame of our country. We can but glance at a few 
which stand out prominently above the rest. 

As the yellow rays of sunset streamed along the 
white line of coast, and the smooth and glassy waters 
of the gulf, near Cape Antonio Lizardo, and west of 
the Island of Sacrificios, on the ninth of March, 1847, 
was presented the most singular and brilliant spectacle 
ever witnessed on this continent. A fleet of frigates, 
steamers, and transports, each bearing the star- 
spangled banner, lay stationed along the bay; and 
soon a long line of surf boats, bearing four thousand 
men, under the immediate command of General Worth, 
to the sound of spirited martial music, and with a 
shout that made the welkin ring, as a gun gave signal, 
bore for the shore. As the keels touched the shallow 
beach, the men sprang waist-deep in the water, and 
simultaneously ascended the sandy slope, and formed 
in battle array. Soon another line followed, and ano- 
ther, and the American army was in Mexico , and the 
city of Vera Cruz invested. With its powerful castle 
of San Juan d'Ulloa, it had been deemed impregnable, 
the Gibraltar of America ; but after thirteen days' in- 
vestment, it was compelled to yield to the profound 



204 ORATIONS. 

scientific skill and regulated valor of the "Republic of 
the North/' 

Now began that series of brilliant victories of which 
I have S23oken. When we compare the disparity of 
forces ; when we reflect that one army fought upon 
the march, ever wearied and jaded, exposed to the in- 
clemencies of a hostile climate, in the midst of an ene- 
my's country ; and the other from its mountain fast- 
nesses, and well-wrought fortifications, with every ad- 
vantage of a knowledge and possession of the country 
— we shall find nothing in all history to surjDass the 
achievements of the American arms. 

Up through the long and difficult passes of the 
Cordilleras ; by the gigantic gorges and tremendous 
chasms ; over the pedigrals of volcanoes ; across tum- 
bling mountain torrents, where every bridge was a for- 
tification ; beneath the eye of Popocatapetl and Ori- 
zaba, — the little army of Scott, seldom exceeding ten 
thousand men, pushed its way onward to the heart of 
the country. In vain did Santa Anna struggle to 
make of Cerro Gordo, a Mexican Thermoj)ylfe. The 
American army bore down all resistence, and struck 
the mind of Mexico with a consternation from which 
it never recovered. Here the gallant Shields was shot 
through the breast by a grape-shot. Providence, how- 
ever, preserving him to reap greener laurels upon sub- 
sequent fields of fame. 

On the 17th of August, the army reached the turn- 
ing ridge of the mountains, and here, from the spot 
called Buena Vista by Humboldt, was caught the first 
view of the valley of Mexico, containing its brilliant 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 205 

and populous citj^! A lovelier vision has never risen 
on the eye of man since the old prophet stood upon 
the summit of Pisgah, and gazed upon the fiowery 
Palestine below. It spread out like a rich garden, 
teeming with every variety of tropical fruit, plant and 
flower. The orange tree waved its glistening foliage, 
but half concealing its golden apples, and the pome- 
granate and the cactus displayed their gorgeous blos- 
soms, giving far other invitation than to the hostile 
visitations of war. 

" Oh, Christ! it was a goodly sight to see 
What heaven hatd done for that delicious land." 

But man had prostituted its beauties by his evil 
passions and malignant deeds ; and the stern voice of 
duty called our gallant army on, in their effort to re- 
duce to subjection a foe w^hich pertinaciously refused 
all offers of peace. This was one great characteristic 
in the management of this ^var, which will redound to 
the eternal honor of our government, that we always 
bore the olive-branch in advance of the sword — and, 
before we would crush our foe, invited him to peace. 
But, with a fatuity almost like insanity, he continued 
to reject our proffei's. 

In the middle of the summer solstice, our army 
reached the fields of Contreras and Churubusco. There 
the enemy had rallied all his forces for a desperate and 
final struggle, and had entrenched himself with the 
most powerful fortifications. But after battles on two 
successive days, he was completely vanquished — the 
fourth ai-my which the Mexican Republic had raised 



206 ORATIONS. 

in eighteen months being destroyed, and the capitol of 
the "magnanimous nation'' left completely at the 
mercy of the conqueror. These battles, called by den. 
Scott the Battles of Mexico, were the greatest ever 
fought on this side of the Atlantic — ^if we except the 
almost fabulous naiTatives given of the forces of Boli- 
var, Hidalgo ■ and Morelos. The Mexicans numbered 
fully thirty thousand men, while Scott had not one- 
third of that number. Here the Palmetto Kegiment 
won its most brilliant laurels — laurels alas ! bathed in 
the heart's blood of its gallant commander. In the 
thickest of the terrible fight of Churubusco, when others 
had faltered, when the day seemed well nigh lost, the 
heroic Shields determined to make one more desperate 
struggle for victory. He rode up before the Palmetto 
Regiment, and demanded, loud above the din of battle 
— " Who will follow me r " Every South Carolinian 
here. General," exclaimed the noble Butler, '^ will follow 
you to the death !" And through the iron hail, like 
the Old Gruard at Lodi, the Palmettoes dashed to the 
charge— and the victory. But a terrible toll did they 
pay at those gates of death. In front of his regiment 
bravely cheering them on, their " father and their 
colonel " fell ! Oh do not deem his death unfortunate. 
He fell as brave men love to die. Sooner or later death 
must come to us all ; — the fresh green turf is a far 
sweeter couch than the feverish bed, — and there is no 
nobler boon than to '' look proudly to Heaven from 
the death bed of fame." Sleep proudly, noble Butler ! 
The children of future days will speak thy name with 
pride, and strive to imitate thy deeds ; — and when 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 207 

Carolina's sons shall be called, in their country's service, 
to other fields of iUine, they will pray to pass like thee, 
in Enoch's fiery chariot to heaven. 

An armistice delayed the forward movement of our 
troops ; and it was, witli Punic faith, improved by the 
enemy to organise further resistance, and to collect his 
energies and resources in the vain hope of saving his 
capital from its threatened doom. The treachery being 
detected, hostilities w^ere at once resumed, and the san- 
guinary struggles at Molino del Rey and Chapultepec 
ensued. These terrific contests seemed to revive all the 
horrors of the triste noche of Cortez ; and the cause- 
ways w^hicli had been baptized by Castillian blood, were 
bathed anew by the ensanguined torrents that flowed, 
as fast and freely, from the bosoms of American valor. 
The terrible disproportion of forces, the formidable for- 
tifications which had to be overcome, invested the 
achievements of our troops with a splendor as brilliant 
as the richest haloes of chivalry. They are all recorded 
by the pencil of the historian in illuminated letters, and 
I need but allude to them.to fill the mind with thront^in": 
scenes of embattled contest, heroic achievements, indom- 
itable fortitude — the waving banners, the thundering 
artillery, the gleaming lines, the charging squadrons — 
the shrieks, the roar, the carnage and the smoke of war 
in all its most imposing forms. Here, in cooperation 
with the whole army, the Palmetto Regiment renewed 
its right to be called by excellency, the chivalry of the 
Union, and the gallant Gladden signalised his title to 
wear the blood-stained mantle which had fallen from 
the shoulders of Butler. Numberless instances of ])cr- 



208 ORATIONS. 

sonal valor might be enumerated ; but I shall content 
myself with mentioning one, which will illustrate the 
spirit, the undying resolution, that fired the bosoms of 
all the gallant soldiers of our country upon that memo- 
rable occasion. 

In one of the storming parties, at the hill of Cha- 
pultepec, the banner of his regiment was entrusted to a 
regular soldier, who pledged his word that he never 
would surrender it. Up through the iron hurricane 
that decimated their ranks as they went, the chosen 
stormers moved, that banner borne jDroudly in front. 
Suddenly it was seen to sink ; an officer leaped to the 
the side of the standard bearer ; a grape shot had torn 
away half his head, and he had fallen ; but still his 
hands were clenched to the flag staff, and it was only 
by a desperate struggle, and not till death had quenched 
all his strength, that the standard could be liberated, 
and borne onward to the entrenchments. Tliat soldier 
passed, with the star spangled banner waving above his 
soul, to the battlements of heaven ! 

Ah ! vv^ell might Mexican desperation make its 
deadliest stand at the hill of Chapultepec — for full in 
sight lay the magnificent capital, the prize of the 
victory — and after a few more sanguinary encounters, 
at the garitas of Belen and San Cosme, the American 
army passed into the plaza of Mexico — the great bell 
of the Cathedral tolled the death of a nation — and the 
commander-in-chief of the forces of the North pitched 
his head quarters in the vaunted palace of the Monte- 
zumas ! 

The war, it may be said, was now terminated — 



NATIONAL WELCOME. 209 

though many subsequent and guerilla contests con- 
tinued the inetfectual struggle. A peace loas conquered 
— and after some months of negotiation, a treaty of 
amity and friendly relations was established. The 
American forces have been gradually retiring from the 
country ; and it is to greet the return of some who have 
participated in the noble achievnments which I have 
so poorly portrayed, that we have assembled here to 
day. In the midst of the patriotic enthusiasm engend- 
ered by another recurrence of our national aniversary, 
and with a full appreciation of all their heroic per- 
formances, with hearts bounding with joy and pride, 
we welcome them back to the shores of the Union. 
The o-lad waters of the Gulf of Mexico have borne them 
in triumph, and with seeming exultation in all its 
waves, to our anns, and our hearts, and with the 
thunder of artillery, the plaudits of millions, the Amer- 
ican people cry to them welcome, welcome to the land, 
whose annals they have re-illuminated with a light and 
beauty equalled only by our Revolutionary glory. 

Soldiers of Mexico, we give you here, the first greet- 
ings of the American people. Everywhere in your 
progress through the land, you will be met by the 
cheers and admiration of one sex, and the smiles and 
the love of the other. While we will drop with you 
the tears oi profoundest and tenderest sorrow for the 
loss of those who now sleep in soldiers' graves, upon 
the mountain slopes and battle plains of Mexico, while 
we shall long keep bright their memories in the sanc- 
tuaries of the heart, we will yet extend to the survi- 
vors, our warmest gratitude, our most imperishable 



210 ORATIONS. 

admiration. You have given lessons and examples 
which will tell upon the destinies of our country ; 
which have elevated her in the estimation of all na- 
tions ; which, while extending our dominions over ter- 
ritories of imperial breadth, have proven our national 
capacities for the trials of war as well as the amenities 
of peace ; and which have gone far in accomplishing 
our great destiny of including the whole North 
American continent in one mighty brotherhood of free 
and flourishing States, that shall ever stand, a Pharos 
of Freedom, to illuminate and guide the world. Then, 
Soldiers of Mexico, in the light of this national jubilee, 
welcome back, thrice welcome to the blue skies, and 
fertile fields, the happy homes and free and peaceful 
institutions, of the Kepublic of North America ! 



SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 



THE PILGKIMAGE OF DE SOTO, 



[This sketch was originally published in 1839, and was the first 
attempt made to locate definitely the route of Dc Soto, through the 
Southwest. As all subsequent writers have followed its statements, 
it is here retained in its original form, as the authentic basis of a 
most interesting and romantic chapter of our history.] 

The history of the Southwestern States commences 
at a period antecedent to that of any other portion of 
the American Union. Long before the Pilgrims had 
landed at Plymouth, or the bold and chivalrous Smith 
had led his followers into the savage wilds of Virginia, 
— Spanish enterprise and prowess had over-run and 
subjugated the greater portion of that territory, now 
included within the States of Georgia, Alabama, 
Mississippi, Louisiana, and Florida. Indeed, it was 
that part of North America which was first discovered 
and settl'^d by European adventurers. As early as the 
year 1512, Juan Ponce de Leon, a hardy and adven- 
turous cavalier, who had been a distinguished compan- 
ion of Columbus, discovered the peninsula of Florida, 
and gave it that name from the brilliant profusion of 



214 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS, 

flowers, which decorated its coast, and from the day, 
on which it was discovered ; being the Pascua Florida, 
or Feast of Flowers. The name was subsequently 
applied, by the Spaniards, to all the Southern portion 
of North America ; which they claimed, by the right 
of discovery, for the crown of Spain. Numerous expe- 
ditions were made, within the next ten years, for the 
further discovery and conquest of the country, which, 
it was fondly dreamed, abounded in wealth and magnifi- 
cence, that would cast the golden splendors of Mexico 
and Peru, into the shade. These expeditions all 
resulted unfortunately for those engaged in them. 
The most extensive and disastrous was that of Pam- 
philo de Narvaez, who, with three hundred men, under- 
took the conquest of Florida, in 1528. He landed 
near the bay, then, as now, called Apalachee, and 
made an expedition of eight hundred miles into the 
interior. His route is not known. At the end of six 
months he returned to the coast, with all his high 
hopes of wealth and conquest shattered and gone ; his 
ranks wofuUy thinned by disease and death ; and the 
remnant of his forces in a condition of most miserable 
penury, and without vessels to convey them from the 
country. Several rude barques were constructed, in 
which they put to sea, but they were all shipwrecked 
in a storm near the mouth of the Mississippi ; and but 
four irdividuals escaped, who, after long wanderings 
and captivity, for near seven years, ultimately reached 
Mexico, by land, to tell the sad story. The accounts 
which they gave of the immense extent and magnifi- 
cence of the countries, through which they had passed, 



THE PILGRIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 215 

though partaking of the character of the boldest fiction, 
were readily believed by their countrymen, whose 
minds already regarded Florida, as more than a Land 
of Promise, and as abounding, not only in un])aralleled 
opulence, but in fountains of such miraculous virtue, 
as to perpetuate youth, and to restore old age to its 
primal vigor and bloom. 

Inspired by these incitements, and thirsting for fame 
and conquest, Hernando de Soto, a Spanish cavalier, 
in the year 1538, fitted out an expedition for the con- 
quest of Florida. He was a gentleman of high birth 

# and connections, and had enriched and distinguished 
himself, by a campaign in Peru, under Pizarro. At 
his request, Charles V. constituted him Governor of 

s Cul)a, and invested him with absolute power over the 
immense territory of Florida, which he undertook to 
subjugate at his own expense. Fitting out a most 
splendid armament, in which was invested all his own 
wealth, and that of his companions, many of whom 
had amassed immense fortunes by previous enterprises 
in America, he set sail from the port of San Lucar of 
BaiTimeda, on the 6th of April — " as gaily as if it had 
been but the holiday excursion of a bridal party." He 
stopped in the island of Cuba, long enough to make 
arrangements for its government, during his absence ; 
and then proceeded for Florida, which he reached in the 
month of May, 1539, and anchored in a bay, which he 
called Espiritu Santo ; now known as Tampa Bay. 
The number of his forces, on landing, was six hundred 
and twenty men ; two hundred and twenty-three of 
whom were mounted on excellent horses. These, — 



216 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

many of whom were cavaliers of great wealth and dis- 
tinction, — all partook of the enthusiasm of their leader ; 
and were perhaps as gallant and proud a band of 
soldiers, as have ever been collected together. They 
were provided with all the means and muniments of 
war ; with helmets, bucklers, corslets, shields and 
swords ; and presented as gay and glittering a sijectacle 
as the eye could wish to look upon. In addition to arms 
of all kinds then in use, everything was provided, that 
the experience of former campaigns had proved to be ser- 
vicable ; chains and manacles for caj)tives ; ample stores 
of provisions ; a large drove of hogs for stocking the 
country ; tools of every description ; bloodhounds to 
ferret out the inhabitants ; and — in strange parallel — 
even the sacred emblems and implements of Christi- 
anity, for the purpose of diffusing the mild rays of 
the Star of Bethelem, amid the wilds of Paganism. 

On the 1st of June, De Soto commenced his march 
into the iuterior. And here begins an expedition 
unparalleled in the annals of history. In the language 
of an eloquent WTiter on the subject — '' it was poetry 
put into action ; it was the knight errantry of the old 
world carried into the depths of the American v^^ilder- 
ness. Indeed, the personal adventures, — the feats of 
individual prowess, — the j^icturesque descriptions of 
steel-clad cavaliers, with lance and helm and prancing 
steed, glittering through the wildernesses of Florida, 
Georgia, Alabama, and the prairies of the Far West, 
would seem to us mere fictions of romance, did they 
not come to us recorded in matter of fact narratives of 



THE riLGRIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 217 

cotcmpomries, and corroborated by daily and minute 
memoranda of eye witnesses."* 

It is with this l)old and chivah'ons expedition that 
the HiBTonY of Alabama may be said to commence. 
Apart Irom the interesting incidents of the expedition, 
— the chief of which occurred within her borders, — the 
details of the campaign, as given by cotemporary histo- 
rians, tend to throw light upon circumstances and 
customs, which would otherwise remain mysteries ; 
and serve to elucidate, to some extent, the situation 
and character of her aboriginal inhabitants. We shall 
therefore record, at some length, the movements and 
adventures of De Soto and his companions — particu- 
larly of that portion, Avhich occurred within the present 
N limits of the State of Alabama. . Those which hap- 
pened within the bounds of the other States, through 
which he passed, are more properly the province of 
their respective historians, and fall only incidentally 
within the object of these sketches. 

Before proceeding to narrate the particulars of this 
ex])edition, let us say a word concerning the sources 
from which we draw our information. Of the adven- 
tures of De Soto, there are tw^o authentic narratives.^ 
The first is that of a Portuguese gentleman, who was 
one of the companions of De Soto, but whose name is 



* Theodore living's " Conquest of Florida." 

t Since this sketch was written a third narrative of this expedition, 
hy Louis Hernandez de Biednian, a companion of De Soto, has been 
t'.Mnid and published. It was ))re-ented to the Kin2 orSj)ain, ii. 1544. 
and contains an original report of De Soto from Tampa Bay, dated 
July 9, 1539. It is very reliable. 



218 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

not known. His work was first published at Evora, in 
1557. It has been frequently republished and trans- 
lated into different languages. The first English edi- 
tion was published in 1609, by Hakluyt. To the work 
much faith was given at the time of its j)ublication, 
and it contains internal proofs of its correctness. The 
other account of this expedition was published in 1603, 
and is denominated " The Florida of the Inca, or the 
History of the Adelantado, Hernando de Soto, Gov- 
ernor and Captain-General of the Kingdom of Florida, 
and of other heroic cavaliers, Spaniards and Indians : 
written by the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega." This work 
was originally published in Spanish, and has been repeat- 
edly translated. It is not the production of an eye-wit- 
ness, but of a Spanish writer of undoubted veracity, who 
received his account from three cavaliers of worth and 
respectability, who were in the expedition. These two 
works, though they vary in many of their details, yet suffi- 
ciently coiToborate each other, as to increase their general 
credibility. They have been relied on by all subsequent 
historians, as fountains of truth, and Theodore Irving has 
collated a most interesting work from their respective 
naiTatives. From these sources, aided by the researches 
of other valuable authors, "''•■ we shall draw the statements 
we shall give. We intend also to trace the course of 
De Soto through Alabama, from the knowledge we 
possess, ourselves, of the country. 

De Soto, as has been stated, commenced his march 

♦Belknap's Anier. Biog., v. 1, p. 185—189. McCullough's Re- 
searches, p. 522—531. Nuttall's Arkansas, 247—267. Bancroft's U. 
S., V. 1, 41—59. Wiliiams' Florida, 152—170. Albert Gallatin's 
!^-^An«is of the Indian Tribes. 83—120. 



THE PILGRIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 219 

from Tam|)a Bay, on the 1st of June, 1539. He pro- 
ceeded in a Northeast direction. His disposition was, 
as much as possible, to conciliate the natives. But he 
soon found them true to the si)irit they exhibit to this 
day. They impeded and harassed his march, by open 
and latent hostilities. Fortunately, he found, in one 
of the provinces near Tampa, a Spaniard, by name 
Juan Ortiz, wlio had been left upon the coast by Nar- 
vaez, eleven years previously, and who had been re- 
tained as a captive by one of the Caciques, or Chiefs. 
He had learned the language of the natives, and was 
of great service to De Soto, as an interj)reter, thi'ough- 
out his after wanderings. 

For several months, occasionally resting, the Span- 
iards pursued the course they had first taken. Their 
route must have been very nearly parallel with the 
present road from Tampa to Fort King, and not far 
from it. They found the country intersected by in- 
numerable and extensive morasses and hammocks. 
Through these they fought their way, with great diffi- 
culties and losses. They passed several large and 
swollen streams. These were the Hillsboro', the 
Withlacoochee, and the Suwannee. De Soto, finding 
it impossible to conciliate the inhabitants, commenced 
a war of devastation. He destroyed their fields, and 
burned many of their towns, which were very large ; 
some of them containing sevei-al hundred houses. The 
natives never asked for quarter, but fought to the last 
gasp. After proceeding as far North as the present 
Southern boundary of Georgia, De Soto was induced 
to direct his course to the West, to a province called 



220 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Ajjalachee, by the natives. Here he expected to find 
large quantities of provisions and gold. In the latter 
expectation he was disappointed ; but he found the 
country abounding in food of every description, for his 
men and horses. It was the most populous and 
wealthy province he had yet entered. It was situated 
upon what is now known as Apalachee Bay, or the 
Bay of St. Marks. Here De Soto determined to pass 
the winter, as that season had already set in. He ac- 
cordingly fortified himself, and remained imtil the 
Spring of the ensuing year. During that time numer- 
ous exploring parties were sent out ; one of which dis- 
covered Ochuse, the harbor of Pensacola. A brigatine 
was also constructed, and sent to "Cuba, with instruc- 
tions to return with supplies, the ensuing year, to the 
harbor of Ochuse. 

On the 3d of March, 1540, De Soto broke up his 
winter cantonment at Apalachee, and proceeded, in a 
Northeast direction, towards a j^rovince, at a great 
distance, called Cofachiqui, in which he was informed 
by several captives, that there was a large abundance 
of gold, silver, pearls and precious gems. These were 
the great objects of the Spaniards ; and they accord- 
ingly pursued their march with much enthusiasm, con- 
tinually battling with the natives, and burning their 
towns. They passed up the banks of the Flint River ;"'••■ 

* We give the modern names of these places ; as they can only be 
learned from the descriptions of the narrators. The names as used 
by the Spaniards and natives, furnish but little clue to the route ; 
that of Achise, or Ochis, a village, is to this day the Muscogee 
name of the Ocmulgee River 



THE PILGRIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 221 

crossed it in Baker County, in Georgia ; passed near 
the present sites of Macon and Milledgeville, crossing 
the Ocmulgee and Oconee rivers ; and, after numerous 
hardshi])s and perils, finally anived at the province of 
Cofachiqui, which was situated in the fork of two large 
rivers. These were most probably the Broad and 
Savannah Eivers.'-'^i / 

Great was th^ disappointment, 1/owever, of the 
Spaniards, upon tKeir arrival at Cofachiqui, in not 
finding the vaunted-treasures, for which they had pur- 
sued their lengthy and perilous march. The " yellow 
metal," of which they had heard so much, proved to be 
only a w^orthless co^Dcr ore ; and although they found 
immense quantities /f very valuable pearls, yet these 
little repaid their disappointment. After a long sojourn 
in this province, for the purpose of recruiting the health 
and strength of his forces, De Soto, on the third of May, 
set out in search of other territories, which he hoped 
would better gratify .his cupidity and ambition. The 
direction of his march was now to the Northwest, to 
a province called Co^x., said to be at the distance of 
twelve days' journey. During the first five days, they 
passed over the termination of the Apalachian moun- 
tains, in Habersham county, in Georgia ; and through 
a barren and miserable province called by the natives 
Chalaque. This is the actual name now used by the 
Cherokee Indians to designate their country. The na- 

* Willinms, in his History of Florida, locates Cofachiqui (or Cata- 
f;icliiqiii, as he calls it,) upon the head waters of the Chattahoochee 
River, (p. 160.) The statement in the text is thought to be more 
correct. 



222 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

tives were a puny, pacific race, and nearly naked. They 
subsisted princijially on herbs, roots, and a species of 
wild hen, which abounded in such quantities, that the 
inhabitants brought De Soto, seven hundred, which 
they had killed with bows and arrows. After several 
days' march through a more fertile country, and in a 
western direction, the army reached a small town called 
Canasauga,'*' upon the banks of a river, along which 
the Spaniards had marched for several days. Pursuing 
their route for five days more through a desert country, 
on the 25th of June, they came in sight of a village 
called Chiaha.-j- This is the first point the Spaniards 
reached within the territory that is now the State of 
Alabama. 

The village of Chiaha is said to have been situated 
upon the uj^per end of an island, about fifteen miles 
in length. There is no such island now in the Coosa. 
It is j)robable that the Spaniards either mistook the 
peninsula formed by the junction of two rivers, (the 
Coosa and Chattooga,) for an island, or that those 
two rivers were originally united, so as to form an is- 
land near their present confluence. We have heard 
this latter supposition asserted by persons well ac- 
quainted with the country. There can be little doubt 
that Chiaha was situated but a short distance above 



* This is now the name of a small river, which falls into the Eesta- 
nolla, at New Echota. The river referred to is no doubt the Etowah, 
a branch of the Coosa. 

•*• Called by De Vega, Ichiaha. There is now a stream in Talladega 
County, called Chiaha. or Potato Creek. It runs into the Chocklocko, 
a "branch of the Coosa, 



THE l>Il.(;liIMA<JK OF l)E SOTO. 223 

the junction of the Coosa and Chattooga rivers. Here 
Do Soto remained for several dayi^ ; making diligent 
enquiry for the precious metals. He was informed 
tliat there were metals of a yellow color, found in a 
province about thirty miles to the northward. He 
accordingly despatched two soldiers to examine the 
country. They returned, in ten days, with the infor- 
mation, that it was a barren, mountainous region, '•'" in 
which no metals, but a fine kind of copper, could be 
found. While in Chiaha, the Si)aniards were pre- 
sented by the natives with large quantities of pearls, 
many of which were as large as filberts. These the 
natives obtained from a species of oyster,f found in 
the river, which they opened by the aid of fire. De 
Soto left Chiaha, on the 2d of July, and at sunset, 
came in sight of a village called Acoste, situated on 
the Southwestern extremity of the island. He en- 
camped his army within a bow-shot of the village, and 
proceeded with eight men to visit the Cacique or Chief 
He was a bold warrior, and met De Soto, at the head of 
fifteen hundred of his braves, drawn up in battle array, 
painted, plumed and armed. He received De Soto 
with much courtesy. While they were in conversa- 
tion, some of the Spaniards commenced pillaging the 
houses of the Indians ; who, greatly exasperated, fell 
upon them with their clubs. De Soto perceiving the 
peril of his situation, with his characteristic intrepidity 

* This was probably among the Lookout Mountains, in Clierokee 
County, Alabama. 

+ Pr'.bal»ly the 7Mj<5c?e, which is said sometimes to contain fine 

].,.Ml. 



224 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

and presence of mind, immediately seized a club, and 
commenced beating his own soldiers. The disturbance 
was soon quelled — the conduct of De Soto convincing 
the Indians of his amicable intentions. The Cacique 
was then persuaded to visit the encampment, which he 
had no sooner reached, than he was made prisoner. 
The next day, the Indians exhibiting every indication 
of peace, the Cacique was liberated : and De Soto, 
crossing to the east bank of the Coosa river, on rafts 
and in canoes, proceeded on his march to the South, — 
his object being to reach the Bay of Ochuse, or Pensa- 
cola, where he expected reinforcements and supplies. 

For twenty-four days, the army slowly pursued its 
course, (occasionally stopping for several days,) through 
a populous and fertile province, called Cos a.* The 
inhabitants were invariably friendly and hospitable. 
On the approach of De Soto to the principal town, 
called also Cosa, he was met by the Cacique, borne in 
a litter upon the shoulders of four servants, and fol- 
lowed by a train of one thousand warriors, marshaled 
into companies, and gorgeously arrayed. He was a 
young man of fine person, and noble countenance. 
Upon his head he wore a diadem of brilliant feathers, 
and from his shoulders hung a mantle of martin skins, 
decorated with large pearls. The villagef was situ- 
ated upon the east bank of a noble river ; and con- 



* This embraced the present Counties of Benton, Talladega, Coosa, 
and Tallapoosa. 

t McCullough in his Researches, page 525, says this is the village 
called in the maps " Old Coosa," in latitude 33° 30'. 



THE riLGlUMAUE OF DE SOTO. 225 

tained five liuiulred spacious houses. It was well 
stored with 2>i'<Jvisioiis ; such as maize, pumpkins, 
beans, phims and grapes. De Soto remained at this 
})lace, until the 20th of August, and then departed, 
taking with him, the Cacique, and a large number of 
his warriors to bear his baggage. They passed through 
villages, called Tallimuchasse, Ulliballi, and Toasi, 
and arrived at a town called Tallise-'-' on the 18 th of 
September. This was an important Indian post, 
strongly fortified by pallisades erected upon high em- 
bankments of earth. It was situated in the bend of a 
rapid river, which surrounded it on three sides. 

At Tallise, which was the Southern boundary of 
Cosa, De Soto was met by an ambassador from the 
Cacique of the neighboring province, called Tasca- 
LUZA.| This was the name of the chieftain as well as 
of his kingdom. He was represented as the most 
powerful of all the Caciques of the country. His 
fame reached De Soto, long before he approached his 
territories ; which included immense regions west and 
south of Cosa. The ambassador was the son of the 
Cacique, and came attended by a large train of war- 



* There is no doubt tliat this town was situated in the elbow of the 
Tallapoosa liver, near the present town of Tallasse, in Tallapoosa 
County. The same name lias always been applied to the spot by the 
Indians ; and a tribe of the Creeks was also known by the same ap- 
pellation. 

t This name is a prre Choctaw compound-word, from Tasca or 
Tusca, warrior, and Lusa or. Loosa, black. It, with several other 
words, ])roves that the Indians mentioned in the text, were of the 
same tribf as the pre.«;ent Choctaws. 



226 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

riors. He was of noble and imposing appearance ; 
taller than any Spaniard or Indian in the army ; " as 
symmetrical and graceful as Apollo ;" and of proud 
and jnincely demeanor. His mission was one of peace ; 
and he invited De Soto, in the name of his father, to 
visit his residence. De Soto accordingly crossed the 
Talla23oosa river in canoes, and on rafts, and marching 
Southwest, on the third day, arrived at a small village 
to which Tuscaluza had advanced to meet him. The 
Chieftain was posted on the crest of a hill, com- 
manding a fine view of the adjacent country. He was 
seated upon a rude throne, and surrounded by a hun- 
dred of his principal warriors, decorated with gay 
plumes and mantles. By his side stood a standard- 
bearer, sustaining a banner or target of dressed deer- 
skin, " quartered with black and white, having a run- 
die in the midst, and set on a small staff." This was 
the only military standard the Spaniards saw in their 
wanderings. 

Tuscaluza, like his son, was of noble appearance, 
and of gigantic projDortions, being a foot and a half 
taller than any of his warriors. He was said to pos- 
sess Herculean strength. His countenance indicated 
great ferocity and pride of spirit. Upon none of the 
Spaniards did he bestow the least notice, save De Soto. 
He retained that imperturbable sternness and gravity 
so characteristic of '^ the Stoic of the woods ;" until 
the Governor approached, and then advancing a few 
paces, received him with much dignity and grace. 

In company with the Cacique, De Soto proceeded 
on his march, towards one of the principal villages of 



THE PILGRIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 227 

the province, Ciilled Tuscaluza. H<' reaelu'd it after 
three days' jouniev, of twelve miles each. It was 
situated on a peninsula, formed by a ra])id and power- 
ful river, said, by the Indians, to be the s:inie that 
passed by Tallise.* The day after their arrival the 
Spaniards, with the Cacique, crossed the river upon 
rafts, and proceeded on their march, towards a large 
town called MAUViLLE.f The country, through which 
they passed, was veiy populous and fertile, and on the 
evening of the third day's march, they arrived w^ithin 
a league of the town, and encamped for the night. 
Tuscaluza immediately despatched one of his attend- 
ants to the town, for the purpose, he said, of causing 
appropriate arrangements to be made for the reception 
of the army. Early next morning, De Soto sent two 
confidential soldiers ahead, to observe the movements 
of the Indians, a»d to await his arrival. He then 
mustered an hundred horse and as many foot, as a 
vanguard, and proceeded with the Cacique, who was 
retained as a kind of hostage, to the village. The re- 
mainder of the army was instructed to follow as speed- 
ily as possible, under the command of Luis de Mos- 
cozo, the camp-master general. 

De Soto aiTived at Mauville, early on the morning 

* This was the Alabama : and it is believed that Tuscaluza was 
situated near Evans' Landin:^ in Wilcoie County. McCuUough says, 
" there is a ford on the Alabama, about sixty leafruos above Its cou- 
fluence with the Tombckbee, which the Choctaws call Tascaloussas. 
Here the Army may have crossed." — Researches, page 62o. 

t This town is supposed to have stood on the north bank of the 
Alabama river, in Clarke County. The first Spanish settlers of Ala- 
bama found (ho name, Mauville. api)lied by the natives to the present 



228 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

of the 18tli of October. It was the capital of the 
kingdom of Tuscaluza ; and was situated on the north 
bank of a magnificent river. It was completely en- 
circled by a high wall formed of huge trunks of trees, 
placed in the ground, side by side, and fastened to- 
gether by large vines. There were but two entrances 
to the town, one at the east and the other at the west. 
The wall was surmounted by numerous towers, and 
pierced at close intervals with port-holes, from which 
arrows might be discharged at any enemy. There were 
but eighty houses in the village, but they were of im- 
mense size, capable of containing one thousand persons 
each. They were built in the modern Indian style of 
council-houses, and were erected around a square in 
the centre of the village. De Soto had no sooner arnved 
in the village, than he was informed by his spies, that 
the Indians had collected in immense numbers, and 
with very hostile appearances. The spies computed 
the number of warriors in the village, at more than ten 
thousand ; all well armed. The women and children 
were all removed. These facts convinced De Soto, that 
the Indians entertained hostile and treacherous inten- 
tions. He secretly ordered his men to hold themselves 
in readiness, and despatched a messenger to Moscozo, 
to hurry on with the residue of the army. Tuscaluza 

liver and bay of Mobile. It was, in consequence, given by the Span- 
iards and French, to the natives themselves ; whom they called Maii- 
ville or Jlobile Indians. The two words are pronounced the same in 
the Spanish language: the letters v and b being often used indiffer- 
ently for each other. See Du Pratz, who, most generally, observes 
the former orthography. The word is spelt Mavila by Biedma, and 
MauiUa by the Portugese. 



TIIK PILdKIMAGE OF DE SOTO. 229 

had, in the mciin time, entered one of the houses. He 
was sent for, and refused to return. An altercation 
took place between the messenger and an Indian chief- 
tain, and the warrior was slain. The Indians now 
became frantic. The warhoop rang through the vil- 
lage. From every dwelling immense hordes of savages 
poured forth, and rushed upon the Spaniards, with the 
fury of demons. De Soto rallied his forces, and, through 
desperate carnage, cut his way out of the city. He 
was pursued by the Indians, who seized and slew some 
of his horses, that had been tethered outside of the 
walls. Fortunately at this moment the main body of 
the forces under Moscozo came up, and the savages were 
rei)ulsed, and driven into the city. They had seized, 
however, the baggage and effects of the army, and carried 
them with them in their retreat. The Spaniards made 
a desperate effort to storm the walls, but were assailed 
with such showers of arrows and stones, from the towers 
and loop-holes, as to be compelled to retreat. The In- 
dians again sallied from the ramparts, and fought like 
maddened tigers. Nothing but the superior armor of 
the Spaniards saved them from total annihilation. At 
length, by the aid of their battle-axes, they hewed open 
the gates and forced their way into the village. The 
battle now became more desperate and bloody. Hand 
to hand the steel-clad footmen fought with the naked 
natives. The war-club and the bow were feeble 
weapons in comparison with the heavy claymore and 
tried battle-axe. At the same time the sturdy cava- 
liers made frightful lanes through the ranks of the sav- 
ages. Upon their trained horses they charged upon 



230 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

the confused hordes, trampling and hewing them down, 
and pursuing them from street to street. The Indians 
at leno;th took refuo;e in their houses. But their 
hoped-for safety proved their entire destruction. In a 
moment their dwellings were wrapped in fire. Many 
of them continued to fight from the summits of their 
houses, till they fell in, and perished in the flames. 
The others rushed forth with dreadful yells, only to 
meet a no less certain doom from the infuriated Span- 
iards. Not one of them asked, or would accept of 
quarter, De Soto fought at the head of his troops, and 
■j^as everywhere in the thickest of the fight. The 
Chieftain, Tuscaluza, perished in the flames of his 
dwelling — dying like a w^arrior; and leaving a name 
which deserves to be held in perpetual reverence, as that 
of a hero, and patriot. 

The battle lasted for nine hours. As the sun set, 
his yellow rays fell upon the smoking ruins of the vil- 
lage ; its houses all consumed ; its walls levelled with 
the ground. The streets and the adjacent plains were 
covered with the corpses of the dead. More than five 
thousand Indians were slain ; including those who 
perished in the flames. The Spanish loss was eighty- 
two killed. Nearly every soldier in the army was 
wounded, — many of them very severely. They also lost 
forty-two horses, and all their baggage, and effects. 
Thus terminated the most desperate and bloody Indian 
battle, that ever occurred on the soil of the United 
States. "'•■" 

*'i'he two narratives of this expedition varj^ in their estimates of the 
number of killed and wounded. De Ve^a says the Spaniards had 



THE 1'IL(I11IMA(JE OF DE SOTO. 231 

The condition of the Spaniards, after the battle of 
^laiiville, was most deplorable. So great were their 
sufferings, that they became heartily sick of their en- 
terprise, and desirous of proceeding at once to the Bay 
of Ochuse, or Pensacola, which they were informed, 
was distant about one hundred miles. The resolute 
'cupidity and stubborn i)ride of De Soto would however 
yield to no persuasion, until he had accomplished the 
objects for which he had set out in the campaign. He, 
therefore, with the remnant of his army, — now reduced 
to little more than three-fourths its original number, — 
on the 18th of November, turned his steps to the north. 
He marched for five days (of eighteen miles each) 
through a fertile but iminhabited country, when he 
arrived at a village called Cabusto, in the p^rovince of 
PafaUaya. It was situated on a wide and deep river, 
with high banks. ■••'■ The inhabitants at first exhibited 
hostile designs, but ultimately fled across the river in 
their canoes, taking their property and families with 
them. Here their main force of warriors, " to the 
number of eight thousand," was posted to dispute the 
passage. They were encamped for two leagues along 
the opi)osite bank. The Spaniards spent twelve days 
in constructing boats, and then passed across the river. 



eighty-tv.o killed ; the Iiitliaus eleven thousand. The Poriufrese 
account j^ives eighteen Spaniards killed, and one hundred and fifty 
wounded : the loss of Indians, twenty-five hundred. We have adopted 
a medium numher, as, probably, the most correct. 

*This was the Black Warrior River ; and it is probable that Cabusto 
was near the {^resent site of Erie, in Greene County. 



232 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

The Indians, after some severe skirmisliing, fled before 
the army, which proceeded on its march. 

After five days' march, through a level and fertile 
country, intersijersed with small hamlets, in which 
quantities of maize and dried pulse were found, the 
Spaniards arrived at another river, ^•' where the Indians 
were collected to dispute the passage. Their courage 
how^ever soon evaporated, and the army crossed with- 
out opposition. The Spaniards were now in a province 
called Chicaza, and, in a few days, arrived at the 
principal town, of the same name. On each side of 
the town flowed a small stream, bordered by groves of 
walnut and oak-trees. It being now the middle of 
December, De Soto determined to spend the winter at 
this place, and accordingly took possession of the 
village. The Indians were enraged, but remained 
quiet — '^ nursing their wrath to keep it warm.'' At 
length, one dark and windy night, when the encamp- 
ment was shrouded in sleep, they deceived the senti- 
nels and set fire to the village. And now ensued a 
conflict and conflagration, second only to that of 
Mauville. Many of the Spaniards were burned to 
death ; others were slain. They succeeded however 
in repulsing the savages, after a desperate battle of 
several hours. The loss of their dwellings caused them 
to remove in a few days to a more favorable position, 
which they called Chicacilla. On the first of April 
the army proceeded to the north. They soon came to 



* The Tombecbee. 



THE PILGRIMAGE UF DE SOTO. 233 

a powerful fortress called Alibamo,-^ situated iiinm 
the bank of a small but rajnd river, which after much 
hard lighting and carnage, they stormed and took. 
Marching northwest for several days, they came to 
the largest and most magnificent river they had ever 
seen. They consequently called it the Rio Grande. 
Its Indian name was Chicagua. It was the Missis- 
sippi River, and the Spaniards were the first Europeans, 
who beheld the Mighty Monarch of Rivers. They 
crossed it near the lowest Chickasaw Bluff, not far 
from the thirty-fifth parallel of latitude. 

Beyond this point, it does not fall within our 
province, to trace the nomadic march of De Soto. 
Suifice it to say, that he continued his wanderings, for 
near twelve months, through the vast regions south 
west of the Missouri ; meeting with many strange and 
almost incredible adventures ; suffering greatly from 
his conflicts with the natives, and disappointed in all 
his endeavors to discover the precious metals. He 
proceeded as far west as the foot of the Rocky Mount- 
ains. At length, worn out by fixtigue, and almost 
broken hearted, he returned to the Mississii)pi. Here, 
while making preparations to depart from the country, 
he was seized by a malignant fever, and on the 21st 
of May, 1542, died ; universally lamented by his fol- 
lowers. He was buried in the channel of the Missis- 
sippi river ; receiving, like Attila, a grave commcn- 



♦ This is lio dmilit tlie origiiinl of the worrl Alabama. — wliicli is said 
to siiiiiity. ill the Miiscoijee tonsue — '' Here tee rest.' The river on 
which the fort was situated, is thought to be the Yazoo. 



234 . SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

surate with his career. The surviving Spaniards made 
an attempt under Luis de Moscoso, whom De Soto had 
appointed his successor, to reach Mexico. They were 
foiled in all their efforts, by their ignorance of the 
country, and after six months' arduous wandering, 
were forced to return to the Mississippi. Upon it 
they embarked in seven rude brigantines — descended 
to its mouth, — proceeded along the coast, — and, after 
numerous perils, and sufferings, reached the Spanish 
settlement of Panuco, on the 10th of September, 
1543, — just four years and two months after their 
landing at Tampa Bay. Their number was reduced 
to three hundred and eleven men, in an almost naked 
and famished condition ; their horses were all lost ; 
and, as for wealth and fame, they retained not even 
its shadow. 

With this wild and romantic Expedition, we have 
said that the History of Alabama begins. It is how- 
ever an isolated chapter in her annals. The dark cur- 
tain that covered her territory was suddenly lifted, — a 
brilliant but bloody panorama passed across the 
stage, — and then all was shrouded in primeval dark- 
ness. A sufficient glimpse was however caught, to 
show the condition and character of the natives, and 
to furnish some clue, when taken in connection with 
other information, by which to solve many enigmati- 
cal circumstances connected with their origin, customs, 
and history. 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS; 

With a Historical Sketch of the First White 
Settlements in Alabama, the Battle of 
Burnt Corn, and the other Events that led 
TO the Creek War of 1813-14. 



The Muse of History has seldom been called to shed 
her tears over a more shocking and sanguinary event 
than the massacre at Fort Mims, on the Tensaw branch 
of the Alabama river, in the summer of 1813. For 
the number of its victims and the hideousness of its 
details, it was the most frightful tragedy ever enacted 
on the soil of our country, and forms the most luridly 
illuminated page in backwoods annals. At the time 
of its occuiTence, it spread a thrill of horr.or through 
tlie Union ; and the excited fancies of the timid and 
exposed, along the frontiers, scarcely exaggerated the 
cruelties which had actually been perpetrated. 

It is strange that there is no compendious and faith- 
ful narrative of this catastrophe. '••' The only accounts 



* Pickett's " History of Alabama" has removed this reproach, since 
this sketch was written — in 1844. 



236 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

of it are meagre and superficial, and often en'oneous 
and contradictory. The remarkable character of the 
incidents, and their influential bearing upon the 
destiny of the Indians, and the early history of Ala- 
bama, demand that this should not continue to be the 
case. I shall therefore attempt to draw aside the 
curtain that conceals this occurrence, and let it pass, 
in bloody panorama, before the eye of the reader. 

It is necessary in advance, to glance at the condition 
of the settlements in the inteiior of our territory ; and 
to take a brief historical retrospect of their origin and 
progress. 

^The French, as early as 1699, had settled a colony 
near Mobile, and, in a few years, extended military and 
trading establishments along the waters of the Alabama 
and Tombeckbee. One of these, called Fort Toulouse, 
was near the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, 
upon the recent site of Fort Jackson ; another, the re- 
mains of which were not long since visible, was at the 
mouth of the Cahawba ; and a third, called Fort Con- 
federaicon, overlooked the Tombeckbee, at what is now 
Jones' Bluff, in Sumter County. Fort St. Phillipe also 
stood at Twenty-One Mile Bluff, on the Alabama. 
The purpose of these posts was mainly mercantile ; 
tliough priests were present to inculcate Christianity, 
and soldiers to enforce submission. The sword diffused 
its spirit more effectually than the cross. The native 
tribes were kept in constant warfare with each other, 
or with their white neighbours, and yielded but few 
and trivial commodities for commercial intercourse. 
The French settlements were consequently never pros- 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 237 

perous. Their entire population scarcely ever exceeded 
two thousand persons ; and, in 1763, they abandoned 
the country, which passed successively into the hands 
of Great Britain and Spain. These two nations made, 
by treaties with the natives, some slight acquisitions of 
soil in the interior, and, in 1788, the population of the 
city of Mobile, then belonging to Spain, had increased 
to 1468. Four years after, there was a strong Spanish 
post on the Tensaw, under the command of Deyveral, 
which instigated the Indians to hostilities against the 
United States. The other settlements were few and 
weak ; and, in a few years, the Spanish authority faded 
entirely from the interior. 

Near the close of the last century, a considerable num- 
ber of emigrants had found their way from the States 
of the Union, to the vicinity of Natchez, and to the 
rich lands upon the Tombeckbee and the Tensaw, which 
had been ceded as we have said, by the Indians to the 
British and Spanish governments, and of which our 
own was now the proprietary. This induced Congress 
to establish, by enactment of April 7th, 1798, the 
" Mississippi Territory." It included all the country 
between the Chatahoochee on the east, the Mississippi 
on the west, the 31st line of latitude on the south, 
and a parallel line drawn from the mouth of the Yazoo 
to the Chatahoochee, on the north. Winthrop Sar- 
gent, a native of New England, was appointed Gov- 
ernor, by President Adams. On the 4th of June, 
1800, he, by proclamation, established "Washington 
County," including the settlements on the Tensaw and 
the Tombeckbee. In the next year, the population of 



238 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

these settlements was estimated at 500 whites and 250 
blacks, of all ages and sexes, — '' thinly scattered along 
the western banks of the Mobile and Tombigby, for 
more than seventy miles, and extending nearly twenty- 
five miles upon the eastern borders of the Mobile and 
Alabama." ■'*=" 

This population continued to increase in number 
and extent, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
Choctaws, who claimed the land west of the Tom- 
beckbee and its tributaries, and of the Creeks, who 
asserted dominion east of those waters. A treaty was 
however effected in 1802, by which the Choctaws 
yielded all their land south of a line from Hatcha- 
tigby Bluff on the Tombeckbee, west to the Choctaw- 
hatchee. The increase of ]3opulation caused the estab- 
lishment, of two new counties : Baldwin, north of 
Washington ; and Clarke, embracing the fork of the 
Alabama and Tombeckbee. Several villages sprang, 
at least nominally, into existence. The territorial 
legislature incorporated St. Stephens, Kodney, Wake- 
field, and Dumfries. The three last perished "in 
the bud ;" St. Stephens was then the seat of the U. S. 
factory or trading-house under the charge of George 
S. Gaines, and became subsequently the Capitol of 
our own State. In 1804, the jurisdiction of the Fed- 
eral courts was extended over the "Washington 
District," and Henry Toulmin, of St. Stephens, was 
appointed Judge. 

The population of these settlements was principally 

* American State Papers, vol. v., p, 659. 



THE MA^fJACIlE AT FORT MKMS. 239 

confined to the western side of the Tombeckbee ; 
though there were some seven or eight hundred inhabi- 
tants resident u])on the Tensaw and the Ahibama, and 
in the angle made ])y the latter stream with its western 
tributary. The boundary with the Creek or Muscogee 
Indians was not definitely settled. The pioneers claimed 
so much of the land east of the Tombeckbee as had once 
belonged to the Choctaws. This embraced very nearly 
all of the present County of Clarke^ and the southern 
borders ^ the Alabama, as high uj) as Claiborne. 
But the contiguous Muscogee tribe, the Alabamas, 
resisted this claim, and complained of the encroach- 
ments of the whites. At the treaty at Fort Wilkinson 
in 1802, the 3Iad Wolf said " the people of Tombigby 
have put over their cattle in the fork, on the Alabama 
hunting grounds, and have gone a great way on our 
lands. I want them put back. We all know they 
are Americans.'' Other chiefs reiterated complaints, 
and threatened to remove the intruders by force. '••■ If 
there were grounds for such complaints thus early, it 
may well be believed that they greatly increased in the 
course of ten years. The only thing that reconciled 
the Indians to the inroads of the settlers, was the 
facility aftbrded for traftic. The spirit of trade was 
strong with these simple people ; and, in 1809, their 
supplies of furs, peltries, and other produce, to the 
factory at St. Stephens, exceeded in value seven thou- 
sand dollars. 

Mobile and the temtory between the Perdido and 



*Am. State Papers, v. 676. 



240 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

the Mississippi, south of latitude 31*^, though pur- 
chased by the United States, in 1803, as a part of 
Louisiana, was fraudulently held by Spain, as a por- 
tion of West Florida, until 1813. The ingenuity of 
Talleyrand had, by equivocal phraseology, given a color 
to this claim ; but at length our government, wearied 
of juggling pretences, determined, like Brennus, to 
throw her sword into the scale. This was authorized 
by a secret Act of Congress, and, on the thirteenth 
of August, 1813, General Wilkinson forcibly took pos- 
session of Mobile, and placed a garrison in Fort Char- 
lotte, formerly Fort Conde. A convenient avenue 
for commerce was thus opened to the interior settle- 
ments, it having been previously much restricted by 
the Spanish authorities at Mobile. Before this, these 
settlements were completely insulated. They were cut 
off from the white inhabitants at Natchez and in its 
vicinity, by a strip of Choctaw territory. To the 
east, the Muscogees dwelt as far as the Oakmulgee, 
and the nearest settlements to the north were in the 
bend of the Tennessee. 

The character of the settlers upon the Tombeckbee, 
Tensaw, and Alabama, can be inferred from the cir- 
cumstances which sun'ounded them. It is not the 
timid, the weak, or the luxury-loving, who make their 
homes in the deep wilderness and among savage tribes. 
The restless spirit in search of adventure ; the indus- 
trious laborer anxious to repair, upon new soil and 
under more propitious circumstances, the fortune which 
had become dilapidated in his old home ; the hardy 
hunter, whose chief delight was to pursue the bear, the 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 241 

beaver, or the deer ; the pedlar in the wares suited to 
the simple taste of the children of the woods ; the 
refugee, for whatever motive of crime, injustice, or 
misanthrophy, from the restrictions and associations of 
1)etrt;er regulated communities ; these, and such as these, 
are always the constituents of our frontier settlements, 
and composed, in the main, the population we are now 
attempting to describe. They were emigrants princi- 
pally from the States of South Carolina, Georgia, Vir- 
ginia, and Tennessee. A small admixture of French 
and Spaniards from Mobile, chiefly Creoles of the 
country, produced singular contrasts among this motley 
population. The names of a few of the most promi- 
nent families who had emigi*ated to these remote 
regions, from the American States, are preserved by 
their descendants, still in the same vicinage, or by 
tradition. We may enumerate the following : Upon 
the Tensaw, — the Halls, the Byrnes', the Linders, the 
Steadhams, the HoUingers, the Easlies, and the Gil- 
creasts : Upon the Tombeckbee, — the Bates', the 
McGrews, the Powells, the Calliers, the Danbys, the 
Lawrences, the Moungers, the Kimbills, the Barnetts, 
the Talleys, the Bakers, the Hockets, the Freelands, 
and the Wheats.* These families, and others of 
similar origin, were scattered over the country, at dis- 
tant intervals, generally engaged in agricultural pur- 
suits, and in hunting the valuable game that everywhere 
abounded. 

It is not to be understood, from the general sketch- 

* See Pickett's History of Alabama. 



242 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

ing we have given, that the moral condition of these 
backwoods settlements, during the period we have 
in view, was either chaotic or debased. There were 
many men of integrity and intelligence, and many 
families of social worth, among the inhabitants. The 
laws of the territory were strictly oberved ; and even 
an academy ''for promoting morality and virtue'^ 
among the young, was located by charter, as '' Wash- 
ington Academy/' at the town of Kodney, then the 
Court House of Washington County. '••■ But the chief 
characteristics of these people were the sterner virtues. 
They were brave, industrious, patient, generous and 
persevering ; and well qualified, both in moral and 
physical capacities, to endure the hardships and dan- 
gers of their insulated position. These capacities were 
soon called into requisition and tested to their utmost. 
We now propose to examine the causes which led to 
hostilities upon the part of the Muscogee, or Creek In- 
dians, in 1813, and produced the dreadful calamity 
that befell the refugees at Fort Mims. 

In the Spring of 1812, Tecumseh, in furtherance of 
his plan of uniting all the aboriginal tribes in a con- 
federacy against the Americans, visited the Muscogee 
Indians. By artful operation upon their superstitions, 
he succeeded in enlisting the greater part of the na- 
tion, particularly the towns on the Alabama waters, 
in favor of his schemes. At Tuckabatchee, on the 
Tallapoosa, he addressed the National Council. Sus- 
pecting treachery upon the part of the principal Chief, 



♦Turner's Digest of Miss. Stats,, 1816, p. 65. 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 243 

the Big Warrior, Tecumseh, it is said, told the Coun- 
cil that, when he returned home, he would stamp his 
foot upon the ground, and shake down all the houses 
in Tuckabatchee. In a few weeks the great earth- 
quakes of that year occurred, and demolished the vil- 
lage. The Indians immediately cried out '^ Tecumseh 
has arrived at home !" .This, and similar circumstances 
inflamed the minds of the Indians ; prophets and 
witches sprang up in every town ; and it. was impossi- 
ble to restrain hostilities. Murders were committed in 
the nation, and upon the frontiers. A delegation, un- 
der the command of the Little Warrior, returning from 
a visit to Tecumseh, butchered several families in Ten- 
nessee, and took prisoner a Mrs. Crawley, " a modest, 
well-disposed woman," whom they carried to " a very 
old village,'' at the falls of the Black Warrior. Here 
it was determined to put her to death, and her grave 
was dug ; but the squaw, in whose custody she was, 
informed her of the design, and the night before her 
intended execution, she escaped. " The chief man of the 
village was disposed to be peaceable, and bought her 
after her escape, and sent out several of his young men 
to hunt for her, by whom she was found, after two or 
three days, half-starved and half-naked." '•' In the 
meantime George S. Gaines, of St. Stephens, had 
heard of her captivity, and benevolently despatched 
Tandy Walker to her relief, by whom she was ran- 
somed, and taken to that place, whence she retui*ned 
to her friends in Tennessee. 

♦Am. State Papers, v. 814. 



244 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

The Big Warrior, and other friendly chiefs at- 
teropted to punish the perpetrators of these hostilities ; 
and several were put to death. This produced the 
most violent enmities among the Indians themselves. 
Meanwhile, the inhabitants upon the Tombeckhee and 
the Tensaw were in a state of terrible suspense and 
alarm. Abandoning their fields and residences, they 
fortified themselves in hastily constructed stockades ; 
and watched the movements of the enemy. To in- 
crease their apprehensions, it became certain that 
British emissaries, aided by the Spanish authorities at 
Pensacola, were urging the Indians to hostility, and 
supplying them with arms and ammunition. Word 
was brought that a large party of warriors, under the 
command of Peter McQueen, an influential half-breed 
chief, who resided at Tuckabatchee, on the Tallapoosa, 
had, on their way to Pensacola for supplies, burnt the 
house of Joseph Cornells, the Government Interpreter, 
who had married a white woman, and murdered 
several of his family. It was determined to intercept 
this party, u]3on their return. A force, amounting to 
about three hundred persons, including white militia, 
mixed-breeds, and friendly Indians, was soon collected 
and organized under the command of Colonel James 
Caller, who was mainly instrumental in getting up 
these expeditions. William McGJ-rew was chosen 
Lieutenant Colonel, and Zackariah Philips and Jour- 
dan, Majors. John Wood was appointed aid-de-camp. 
Among the Captains, were Samuel Dale, Benjamin S. 
Smoot, David Cartwright, and Bailey Heard. The 
friendly Creeks were headed by Dixon Bailey and 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIM8. 245 

David Tait, educated and gallant half-bloods. Of 
the Lieutenants, Patrick May, Girard W. Creagh, and 
William Bradberry are worthy of mention. The 
troops were all mounted gun-men, generally with their 
favorite rifles. They crossed the Alabama River at 
Sizemore's ferry, some distance below Claiborne, and, 
marching rapidly to the southeast, intercepted Mc- 
Queen's command, numbering about three hundred 
and fifty warriors, at a ford upon Burnt Corn Creek, 
now in Conecuh County, " where the old furrow-path 
turned off to Pensacola." The returning party had, 
in their possession, a large number of arms, and '^ one 
hundred horse-loads of ammunition," which they had 
received from their British and Spanish friends. They 
were halted in a hill-engirdled bend of the creek, near 
a large spring, engaged in cooking dinner, with their 
pack-ponies grazing around. Caller's troops ap- 
proached so cautiously, that the main body dismounted 
behind the hill, poured in a destructive fire, and 
charged, before the Indians had fairly risen from the 
ground. They were driven in the wildest fright and 
confusion across the stream, into a large swamp 
or reed-brake, and their horses, with their valuable 
loads, were at once seized by their assailants, who 
were greedy for pillage. This led to a disastrous re- 
verse. The red-men rallied in the swamp, opened a 
heavy fire, and charged back with their tomahawks 
and war clubs, amid the fiercest cries for vengeance. 
Caller, seeing the confused and exposed condition of 
liis men, ordered a retreat to their horses, but this 
produced a panic, and a general route ensued. In 



246 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

vain did Caller, Dale, Bailey and Smoot make des- 
perate efforts, by rallying small parties, to tm-n the 
battle. A series of charges and retreats, irregular 
skirmishes and frequent close and violent encounters 
of individuals, and scattered squads, took place. Dale, 
Creagh and Bradberry were severely wounded, and, af- 
ter a helter-skelter contest of three hours, the coming 
on of night left the tawny warriors of McQueen vic- 
tors of the field, though they paid most dearly for their 
success, many of them being slain, and most of their 
ammunition and supplies destroyed or canded off, with 
their horses, by their fugitive foes, who had but two 
killed and fifteen wounded. The defeated troops fled 
'^ fast and far," all that night, in scattered bands, 
through the hills of Conecuh, in constant dread of pur- 
suit. Colonel Caller and his Aid, Major Wood, es- 
caj)ing on foot, became lost in the wilderness, for two 
weeks, and nearly perished from hunger.''' 

This engagement, which was denominated the Battle 
of Burnt Corn, took place in July, 1813. It excited 
the Indians to instant and general hostility. The 
symbolic war-clubs, painted red, were at once dispatched 
to all parts of the nation, and old chieftains and young 
warriors responded to their call with as great alacrity 
as ever the Highland clans rallied around the cross of 
Clan Albin. . Every friendly or hesitating warrior was 
compelled to join with the hos tiles, or to flee from the 
nation. Weatherford, as will be seen, was thus forced 
to take up the tomahawk, and, having once embarked 

* Am. State Papers, v. 849, '51. — Lewis Sewall's Poems, (Mobile, 
1833.) 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 247 

in the contest, his masterly and imperious spirit could 
hold no subordinate position. It was determined to 
seek signal and summary revenge for the lives of those 
slaughtered at Burnt Corn, and to commence at once 
the general warfare of extermination against the whites. 
For this purpose a secret expedition against the Tom- 
beckbee settlements was planned by HiUis-Jiadjo, or 
Josiah Francis, and Sinquista, prophets ; and Peter 
McQueen, HoboJioithlee Micco, Jumper, afterwards 
celebrated in Florida, and Weatherford, war-chiefs. 
The thirteen towns, — Alabama, Columa, Wewauka, 
Ochebofa, Waukakoya, Hoithlewaula, Foosahatchee, 
Ecunhutke, Savanogga, Muclausa, Hookcha-oochee, 
Puckuntallahassee, and Pochusa-hatchee, furnished 
warriors for the expedition. The towns of Oakfuskee, 
Tallassee, and Autossee, " formed a front of observa- 
tion," towards Coweta, on the Georgia border, to con- 
ceal the movement, and keep in check the friendly 
Indians. 

The waiTiors enlisted were over a thousand in num- 
ber. With tliis force, the hostile chiefs movedstealthily 
to the attack on Fort Mims. This fort was selected 
because it was believed to contain tlie body of those 
who had been engaged in the Battle of Burnt Corn. 
Before we proceed to narrate the particulars of this 
attack, we will revert to the condition of the Settlers, 
and the preparations they had made to meet the hos- 
tilities of* the Indians. 

Immediately upon the return of the expedition from 
Burnt Corn, the inhabitants took every measure in 
their power to increase and strcnghten their fortiiica- 



248 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

tions. Above the confluence of the rivers, in Clarke 
County, several picket-posts, known as Forts White, 
Easley, Sinquefield, and Glass, were gan-isoned by the 
settlers from their vicinities, and white and half-breed 
refugees from the nation. These posts were considered, 
from their eastern position, as the most exposed of any, 
and were guarded with the utmost vigilance. The 
inhabitants west of the Tombeckbee felt fewer appre- 
hensions of danger, but still sought protection at St. 
Stephens and Fort Stoddard. In the Tensaw settle- 
ment, the fears of the people were at first greatly ex- 
cited. Though their residences were scattered for nearly 
eighty miles along the Alabama and the Tensaw, yet 
there was not a fortification, in the whole extent, which 
could be relied on as a secure defence against savage 
assault. To remedy this deficiency, Samuel Minis, an 
old and wealthy inhabitant, who had long traded with 
the Indians, erected, with the assistance of his neigh- 
bors, a stockade fortress around his residence, which 
was four hundred yards from "Lake Tensaw," a bay 
or tributary of the Alabama, that extends eastward 
one mile from the river. This was about two miles 
southeast from the " Cut-Ofi"," and about sixty fr'om 
Mobile. The site of the fortress was in a level field or 
" clearing," of six or eight acres, intersected by a small 
branch or creek, which discharges itself into the Lake. 
A thick growth of cane and some woods extended along 
this stream, and between the fort and the lake. The 
walls of the fortress, which were originally square, and 
enclosed an acre of ground, were formed in the ordinary 
picket-fashion of our frontiers, by the trunks of small 



THE MASSACRE AT FOET MIMS. 249 

pine trees, about fifteen feet in length, being planted in 
a ditch about the enclosure, and fastened together at 
the top by horizontal strips or braces of smaller tim- 
ber. They were pierced, about breast-high, with port- 
holes for rifles and muskets, but with no provision for 
the use of artillery, as the garrison possessed none. At 
the southwest corner there was a rude block-house and 
bastion. The enclosure contained, besides Mims' frame 
dwelling and log out-houses, ten or twelve rude cabins 
and shelters, erected by the refugees and soldiers. 
There were two gates to the fortress, but the one on 
the west was permanently closed. The eastern one 
was eight feet wide, and formed of large and cumbrous 
pieces of timber. Fifty feet inside of this gate, a line 
of old pickets stood — the fort having been extended to 
the east. 

Such was Fort Mims, the main defence of the 
settlers southeast of the Alabama ; and to it, upon the 
approach of danger, they fled with their families. 
The intestine hostilities also expelled the half-breeds 
and other friendly warriors from the nation, and they 
took refuge with their wives and children in this newly 
erected fortification. The number of occupants was, 
consequently, very considerable ; but it was still farther 
swelled by the addition of sixteen men, under Lieuten- 
ant Osborne, and three companies of Mississippi Volun- 
teers, commanded respectively by Captains Middleton, 
Jack, and Batchelor, — comprising one hundred and 
seventy-five men, all under Major Daniel Beasley. The 
other men in the fort capable of bearing arms, including 
the friendlv half-breeds and Indians, were seventy in 



250 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

number, commanded by Dixon Bailey, so distinguisbed 
at Bm^nt Corn. The effective military force thus 
amounted to two hundred and forty-five. Besides 
these there were three hundred women and children, 
making an aggregate of near five hundred and fifty 
souls crowded into this naiTOw fortification. ' 

At the first burst of alarm, the garrison in Fort 
Mims were properly vigilant and cautious ; but they 
soon became singularly inattentive to the defences of 
the place. The ofiicer in command seems to have 
been a vain, rash, inexperienced, and over-confident 
soldier, — though unflinchingly brave when in the 
presence of the foe. In the latter part of August, 
General Ferdinand L. Claiborne, commanding the 
forces raised in Western Mississippi, visited the 
post, cautioned its possessors against a surprise, and 
advised the construction of two additional block 
houses. These warnings he repeated by letter even 
the day before the attack. But a strange fatuity 
appears to have befallen the garrison. They were 
satisfied that the Indians did not contemplate an 
attack upon the fort, but were directing their hostili- 
ties to the Georgia frontier. In vain did several of 
the most experienced and cautious of the backwoods- 
men give warning of impending danger : in vain even 
did a hostile warrior, the very evening before, apprise 
some of his relatives in the fortress, of the intended 
attack : in vain did two negroes declare that they had 
seen twenty warriors j^ainted for battle, in the vicinity 
of the fort : Major Beasley would listen to no remon- 
strance, but steadily refused to keep the gate of the 



THE MASSACRE AT Tv^tllT MHIS. 251 

fortress shut, and |jermittecl the inmates to wander 
unrestrained along tlie banks of the Lake. He seemed 
to have been actuated by a spirit of vain bravado and 
criminal self-complacency. How forcibly does his 
conduct remind us of the Roman adage, " whom the 
gods intend to destroy, they first make mad!" 

Such was the condition of things at Fort Mims, on 
the morning of the 30th of August. The sun rose, 
beautiful and with a dewy coolness, over the forests 
of needle-leaved pines that extended off to the east, 
and concealed beneath their high and shafted arcades, 
the grimly-painted and fast-approaching warriors of 
Weatherford and McQueen. In the fort all was con- 
fidence and hilarity. The women and children were 
scattered in idle groups around the block-houses, and 
in front of their tents and sheds : ^' the men were seated 
in two circles in the yard, talking what they would do 
if Indians should come ;"''' and Major Beasley, with a 
party of his officers, was engaged in a game of cards, 
and had just ordered a negro to be whipped for giving 
a "false alarm ;" when, a little before noon, the sim- 
ultaneous sounds of the rifle and war-hoop were heard, 
and a large body of warriors was discovered within a 
short distance of the fort, rushing for its entrance. A 
few of them passed the gate before Beasley could rally 
his men ; but he soon collected a sufficient force to 
slay the intruders, and a bloody and doubtful contest 
ensued for the mastery of the passage. Its narrowness 
limited the number of the assailants, but they rushed 

* Col. Han-kins. 



252 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

desperately forward, and with their war-clubs, toma- 
hawks and scalping-knives, grappled, hand to hand, 
with the defenders. The carnage was terrible on both 
sides. Major Beasley and his officers here almost re- 
deemed their former criminal neglect. They resolutely 
bore the brunt of the conflict ; and it is worthy of em- 
phatic remark that every officer fell fighting at the 
gate. Beasley was shot through the body, and died 
like a hero, cheering his men. A Lieutenant fell from 
the loss of blood, and was borne to a block-house by 
two women, but, reviving from his faintness, he insisted 
upon being carried back to the gate, which was done 
by the same heroines, and he died by the side of his 
companions. After half an hour's struggle, the gar- 
rison succeeded in shutting the gate, which, singularly 
enough, had remained open so long that its closure 
was greatly impeded by sand and rubbish. 

The party thus repelled were two hundred in num- 
ber, and constituted but an advance body of the 
Indians. The main force under Weatherford, eight 
hundred strong, now came up, and the attack was 
renewed, under the directions of that chief, with an 
unremitting discharge of bullets and arrows on every 
side of the fort. The garrison had been hurriedly 
formed for the defence as follows : on the eastern 
front, embracing the gate, Oaptain Middleton's com- 
mand ; on the south. Captain Jack's ; on the west. 
Lieutenant Randon's, and on the north. Captain Dixon 
Bailey's. The soldiers all fought with the utmost 
desperation. Even the women, seizing muskets and 
iifles, placed themselves at the port-holes and heroically 



THE MASSACRE AT I'OUT MIMS. 253 

returned the fire of the assailants. The policy of the 
latter, however, was to carry the place by storm, and, 
seizing the rails from some adjacent fences, they rushed 
forward, stopped many of the port-holes, and com- 
menced cutting down the pickets, with their axes. 
They soon broke through the outer line of pickets on 
the east, and then gained the mastery of most of the 
port-holes of the inner one, and poured their fire into 
the centre of the fort. The pickets now yielded at 
several points on the other sides, and the savages in 
overwhelming numbers rushed in among the defenders. 
Such of these, as were not slain, took refuge in the 
houses, and fought from the windows and through holes 
forced through their roofs. But the Indians had, with 
flaming arrows, at the outset, set these on fire, and 
they were soon \vrapped in a general conflagration. 

The scene that ensued bafiles description. Notwith- 
standing their awful position, the besieged continued 
to fire their guns, through the flames, upon the sava- 
ges. At length, as the roofs fell in, many rushed from 
the buildings, and attempte-d to escape or imj)lored 
mercy, but were immolated without distinction of age 
or sex. A few negroes and some women of the half- 
blood were alone spared. But seventeen, of the five 
hundred and fifty occupants of Fort Mims, escaped to 
narrate the dreadful tragedy ! 

The loss of the Indians, during the day, was very 
great. Not less than fifty warriors, including five 
prophets, were slain in the first assault upon the gate, 
and more than three hundred fell in the subsequent 
contest. 



254 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Colonel Hawkins, the Indian agent, gives us, in his 
letters, some of the details of this horrible transaction, 
which he received from a negro taken prisoner at the 
time : ^' He said he was in Mims' house, when it was 
taken and destroyed. An Indian, seeing him in the 
corner, said, ^ Come out ; the Master of Breath has 
ordered us not to kill any but white peo]3le and half- 
breeds/ An Indian woman, who was in the house, was 
ordered out, and to go home. Dixon Bailey's sister, 
a half-breed, was asked what family (white or red) she 
was of ? She answered, pointing to her brother, ' I 
am the sister to that great man you have murdered 
there :' upon which they knocked her down, cut her 
open, strewed her entrails around. They threw several 
dead bodies into the fire, and some that were wounded. 
.... There was much silver money in the houses, 
melted and run about, and some dollars blackened 

only Among the killed are McGirth, Jones, 

McCarty, Sam Smith, Dixon Bailey, his two brothers, 
Mims and his family, Captain Melton, John Randall 
and all his family, except Peter Durant, and one of his 
daughters. . . . McGirth's wife, and Jones' wife, and 
all their children, except one of McGrirth's, killed in 
the fort, were taken, with the reporter, prisoners to the 
nation. ... A daughter of Mr. Cornells told him to 
make his escape, and tell what the Indians had done. 
. . . Mrs. McGirth, on her way to the nation was 
excessively distressed, and cried out aloud upon being 
threatened by some of the warriors that they would put 
her to death. She urged them to do it, as, in the 
situation of her familv, she wished to die. She and 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 255 

Mns. Joncs, with tlieir families, were sent to Wcwoka. 
. . . After the battle, the Indians encamped about a 
mile from the fort, until next day, twelve o'clock, 
during which time they were busy hunting negroes, 
horses and cattle, and brought off a great many." 

The names of all who so miraculously escaped from 
this great massacre, are not now known, but the fol- 
lowing list of most of them has been furnished me, on 
the authority of two of the survivors : Dr. Thomas 
G. Holmes, since of Baldwin County, Alabama ; 
Lieutenant W. R. Chambliss, of the Mississippi Vol- 
unteers ; Lieutenant Peter Randon, of the Tensaw 
m'litia ; Jesse Steadham and his brother Edward, 
afterwards citizens of Baldwin County ; Martin Bigdon, 
Josiah Fletcher, John Hoven, Joseph Perry, James 
Bealle, and Jones, Matthews, and MoiTis, whose given 
names are not remembered. Several others are named 
in Hawkins' letter just quoted. Sam Smith a half- 
breed, whom he names as killed, also escaped. Most 
of those who escaped, did so by pushing through the 
fallen pickets at the least exposed points, and rushing 
through the confused lines of the Indians, to the adja- 
cent reed-brake, and thence to the Alabama River, 
which they swam, and, after innumerable hardshijis, 
reached Fort Stoddart, at Mount Vernon. Many of 
th(^m were severely wounded. 

Numerous anecdotes live in tradition of the heroism 
exhibited in the defence of this devoted fortress. Tli-' 
fate of the chivalrous Dixon Bailey wears a ronr.mti • 
hue becoming the character of the man. He was the 
main hope and reliance of his associates during 11 o 



256 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

terrible contiictj and lie cheered them by his voice and 
daring deeds till the very last moment. After the 
pickets were forced^ he fought gallantly from amid the 
flames of Mims' house, surrounded by women and 
children, but as the roof fell in, he snatched up his 
youngest child, a boy of three or four years, leaped out 
of a back door, dashed unexpectedly through the foes 
at that quarter, and fled beyond the smoking limits of 
the fort. Many guns were fired at him, and, being 
wounded in several places, he was compelled to retreat 
slowly, but he kept in check three or four warriors 
who pursued him, by presnting towards them his for- 
midable rifle. The Indians, flushed with victims, and 
more intent upon booty than solitary slaughter, did 
not pursue far this forest KoUa, and he succeeded in 
reaching the neighboring swamp, with his child. 

The flight of Dixon Bailey was witnessed by another 
fugitive from the fort, who communicated the fact to 
his friends ; but as nothing was heard from him, his 
fate remained long a subject of painful conjecture. 
After the lapse of several years, however, by the side 
of a small stream, not far from the fort, were discov- 
ered the skeletons of a man and child ; and a gun 
firmly planted in the soft earth bore the name of Dixon 
Bailey. He had died, it was supposed, of his wounds, 
and the child had perished of hunger, by the side of its 
dead father ; or, perhaps, had been slain in his arms.'*' 

* For this interesting tradition I am indebted to the MSS. of Mrs 
Maria Boykin, formerly the accomplished wife of Col. B. Boykin of 
Mobile. She had made many interesting collections as to the History 
of Alabama, but unfortunately died before she had finished them for 
publicati(m. 



THE MASSACRE AT FORT MIMS. 257 

We might mention other anecdotes connected with 
this massacre, but the reader has ah'eady ''supped full 
of horrors/' and we hasten to conclude our sketch. 
The bodies of the slain, on this occasion, both Indians 
and whites, were never buried, and long afterwards, so 
great had been the carnage, the fields contiguous to 
the fort were white with human bones, bleaching 
under the influence of the seasons. The disaster 
terminated the settlements east of the Tensaw, and 
they were not resumed until the conclusion of the 
war. Upon their return homewards, the Indians 
sent out a detachment of one hundred warriors, under 
the jH'ophet Francis, which attacked one of the fotts 
in the fork of the Alabama and Tombeckbee, but was 
repulsed with a loss of five killed. The Indians then 
returned to the nation, mourning in plaintive songs 
their warriors who- had been slain, but rejoicing more 
loudly over the many scalps they had brought back, 
and the unprecedented butchery they had achieved. 
Well might they, in their darkened barbarism, imagine 
that the complete destruction, of the White Man, so 
positively promised by their prophets, had'already been 
begun, and soon would be accomplished. Little did 
they see, in the future, the dreadful retribution to be 
brought upon their country, by Claiborne, and Floyd 
and Jackson. Their boasted massacre itself became 
a watchword and an impulse to devastating armies, 
and it was resolutely determined by each of those 
generals, that no wamor, whose participation in the 
carnage at Fort Mims could be proven, should be 
permitted to escape with his life. The commencement, 



258 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

progress, and termination of the war, viewed in this 
relation, develope a spirit not unlike the sullen desti- 
nies of the G-reek tragedy, and partake of an interest 
but little subordinate to the melancholy stateliness oi 
the (Edipus, or the Medea. 



SKETCH OF WEATHERFORD, 

OR THE 

R-E D EAG^L E, 

The Great Chief of the Creeks in the War 
AGAINST General Jackson ; with Incidental 
Accounts of many of the leading Chiefs and 
Warriors of the Muscogee Indians. 



** Shall not one line lament the lion race, 
For us struck out from sweet creation's facel" 

Charles Sprague. 

The heroic and exalted character once generally at- 
tributed to the aborigines of our country, has come to 
be regarded as an overwrought fable. The singular 
manners and picturesque costumes which these strange 
people first presented to European eyes, their novel 
modes of life, the vast forests through which they 
roamed in quest of game or war, their courage, hardi- 
hood and unrestrained freedom, produced upon excited 
fancies an over-estimate of the happiness and virtues 
of their condition. Voyagers and travelers, who had 
seen but little of their actual character and habits, 



260 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

vied with each other in depicting them as a primitive 
people, existing in Arcadian comfort, possessing few of 
the vices of civilization, and retaining the traits and 
qualities of an almost unfallen nature. This eiTor was 
extended by the virtues and romantic adventures of a 
few of the children of the woods, a Pocahontas or a 
Philip of Pokanoket, who were erroneously taken as 
specimens of their entire race. Poetiy and fiction lent 
their embellishments to conceal the truth, and the 
pleasant fancies of Chateaubriand, Kousseau, and 
Campbell, were received by the world as faithful por- 
traitures of the virtues, circumstances, and sentiments 
of the American Indian, — " the stoic of the woods, 
the man without a tear." 

Observation and experience at length dissipated these 
errors. The American Indian was found to be what 
enlightened reason would expect from his circumstances. 
Although he possessed many of the hardier traits of 
character, such as we may properly call the physical 
vii'tues, yet he was entirely destitute of those excel- 
lencies of feelipg and condition which give symmetry 
and loveliness to life. Ignorant, superstitious, cruel, 
bestial and obscene, the victim of strong and degraded 
passions, and a houseless wanderer, exposed to the in- 
clemencies of the seasons and the trials of want, he pre- 
sented, in the main, none of the better beauties of 
humanity, and certainly no illustration of that wild 
whim of the philosopher of Clarens, — the perfection of 
the savage state, and the moral healthfulness of bar- 
barism ! More than this, the Indian has j)roved himself 
unsusceptible of civilization, and unfitted, by the in- 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 261 

stincts of his nature, for the higlier, or even the lower, 
degrees of intellectual and social culture. 

Though such is the general character of the aborigines 
of this country, yet it may not be denied that, in fre- 
quent instances, there have been manifestations among 
them of the nobler properties of mind and heart. Some 
of their waniors have exhibited a military spirit and 
genius unsurpassed in the annals of civilized warfare. 
Philip of Mount Hope, and Pontiac wanted but a fair 
field andausj^icious circumstances, to have accomplished 
careers as bi'illiant as that which extended from Aus- 
terlitz to Waterloo. Combined with this capacity, 
other chieftains have wielded an influence over the 
judgments and passions of men, by the power of their 
eloquence, which must ever command our admiration. 
Who has not felt the deep pathos of the complaint of 
Logan .? It is difficult to award Tecumseh the higher 
place as an orator or a warrior ; and the eloquence of 
Piamingo never failed of its purpose, whether urging 
his red followers to the battle, or censuring the white 
man for unjust encroachments upon the temtories of 
the Chickasaw. 

These enumerations might be extended, but we prefer 
passing at once to the subject of the present sketch ; 
a chieftain, who, though comparatively little known, 
comprised in his character the elements of the warrior 
and the statesman, as fully as any other native hero, 
and, for the elevation and effectiveness of his eloquence, 
certainly surpassed all aboriginal competition. In ad- 
dition to this, liis career was marked by a romantic 
interest little inferior to the incidents of wildest fiction, 



262 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

and his character partook of a spirit of rude chivalry, 
as singular and fascinating, as the circumstances, amid 
which it was developed, were unpropitious and repul- 
sive. We know no finer instance in Indian history, of 
genius, heroism, and eloquence united ; and, about the 
events, which brought these qualities into action, there 
were a consecutiveness of arrangement and a species of 
retributive operation, which give to the whole an epic 
or dramatic semblance and coloring very rare in actual 
occurrences. It is true, that the character of this Mus- 
cogee Chieftain was marked by other and opposite 
qualities ; by cruelty, superstition, and the common 
Tices of his time and people, yet they do not diminish, 
but rather heighten, the effect which a faithful narra- 
tive of his life and adventures is calculated to produce. 
It is exceedingly difiicult, however, to procure the 
materials for such a narrative. Little attention has ever 
been given to the history of the Muscogee Indians ; and 
he who would understand the character and career of 
their principal Chieftain, — a warrior whose name, forty 
years ago, diffused terror along the whole Southwestern 
frontier, — is compelled to be content with meagre and 
incidental allusions, in a few scattered volumes and 
old newspapers, or with the exaggerated and contra- 
dictory accounts of fast-fading tradition. There is 
not, to my knowledge, anything like a biographical 
sketch of Weatherford. This deficiency I propose to 
supply, as a subject of historic interest to all parts of 
our country, but especially to the Southwest. What I 
shall state may be relied upon as strictly true ; for, in 
addition to having examined with all care the pub- 



WEATHERFORD, OR THE RED EAGLE. 263 

lished histories touching the time, I liave drawn my 
information from the statements of several individuals 
who were personally acquainted with Weatherford, in 
the last years of his life, and heard him frequently 
narrate the most remarkable incidents of his history. 
Still my account will be found, to some extent, imper- 
fect, fi'om an ignorance of circumstances which it has 
been impossible to elucidate, and from the contradic- 
tions which always exist in traditionary nan-atives. 
This obscurity, while it detracts somewhat from his- 
toric completeness, yet leaves light enough to satisfy 
us that we are considering one of the most remarkable 
men, whether savage or civilized, which the American 
hemisphere has produced. 

William Weatherford, who was sometimes called, 
in his native tongue, Lamochaftee, or the Red 
Eagle, was a scion of an illustrious stock, among the 
Muscogee or Creek Indians, produced by the inter- 
maiTiage of various white men with females of the 
aboriginal race. Soon after the French, from Mobile, 
had established, in 1714, Fort Toulouse, as a military 
and trading station, near the junction of the Coosa 
and Tallapoosa, a Captain Marchand, in command at 
that post, took as his wife, according to the rude rites 
of the wilderness, Sehoy, a Muscogee maiden of the 
dominant Family of the Wind. From this union was 
born Sehoy Marchand, who married in 1740, Lachlan 
McGilliviay, a shrewd Scotch adventurer from South 
Carolina. They left three children, one of whom, 
Alexander McGillivi-ay, became the great Chief, or 
Emperor, as he styled himself, of all the confederated 



264 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Muscogee tribes. He was a man of the highest intel- 
lectual abilities, of considerable education, and of won- 
derful talents for intrigue and diplomacy. This he ex- 
hibited conspicuously, through the period of the Amer- 
ican Kevolution, in baffling alike the schemes of our 
countrymen, both Whig and Tory, of the Spaniards in 
Florida, of the British at Mobile, and of the French 
at New Orleans, and by using them simultaneously 
for his own purposes of political and commercial 
aggrandizement. A more wily Talleyi'and never trod 
the red war-paths of the frontiers, or quaffed the decep- 
tive black-drink at sham councils or with deluded 
agents and emissaries. His Life would make a most 
astonishing and attractive Komance. The other chil- 
dren of his parents were girls, and formed distinguished 
alliances. One of them married Le Clere Milfort, a 
talented French officer, who resided twenty years in 
the nation, as a War Chief, and then, having lost his 
wife, returned to Paris, published a Memoir of his 
^' Sejour dans la nation Creek/' and died a General of 
Brigade under Napoleon. Another sister, a very gifted 
woman, married Benjamin Durant, a Huguenot trader 
from South Carolina, of wonderful athletic powers, 
and gave birth to several children, among whom were 
Lachlan Durant, still living as the head of a family in 
Baldwin County, Alabama, and a daughter, who mar- 
ried one of the half-breed Baileys, so distinguished, in 
the defence of Fort Mims. 

By a previous marriage with a Tuckabatchee chief, 
the wife of Lachlan McGillivray had had another 
daughter, upon whom she bestowed her own favorite 



265 

queenly name of Selioy. This young princess mamed, 
in 1778, Col. Tait, a British officer at Fort Toulouse — 
that fortress being then a British possession, as Mobile 
was also during the whole period of our Revolution. 
David Tait, a distinguished leader, and other children 
\\ere the fruits of this marriage, and they have many 
descendants still surviving. 

But Col. Tait soon left his half-breed wife, a buxom 
and beautiful widow, and she formed another alliance 
far more important in its consequences. This was with 
Charles Weatherford, an enterprising Scotch pedlar 
and a jmssionate lover of horse-racing, who entered the 
nation from Georgia and speedily amassed a consid- 
erable fortune in negroes and horses. He was a man 
of good English education and of great shrewdness, 
though Claiborne and others have described him as 
sordid, treacherous and revengeful. 

The residence of McGillivi"ay was principally at Little 
Tallasee, upon a beautiful upland lawn called the 
" Apple Grove," overlooking the Coosa ; but his 
brothers-in-law mcade homes and plantations for their 
families at difterent points along the Alabama River, 
as far, even, as its confluence with the Tombeckbee. It 
is perhaps ^n'oper to state here, however, that all of 
these "head-men" had more wives than one, the Mus- 
cogee customs allowing polygamy as freely as the most 
libidinous Mormon could desire. The several wives 
occupied different cabins, often at very remote points. 
Still there was always a favorite Avife, of chief right and 
authority, and the sisters of McGillivray need fear no 
rivalry, as well on account of their own intrinsic rank 



266 SKETCHES AKt> ESSAYS. 

and abilities as from the vast influence of their 
brother. 

Charles Weatherford acquired, by his marriage, 
great popularity in the nation, and took an active part 
in the political and diplomatic dealings with the Span- 
ish and American authorities. His residence was on 
the eastern bank of the Alabama Kiver, at the first 
bluff below the junction of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, 
and opposite the Indian village of Coosawda. Here 
he had a good dwelling-house and store, and, near by, 
his favorite Kace Track, a strong ]3oint of attraction 
to the dissipated natives. These were mainly of the 
Alabama tribe, a large division of the Muscogees, who 
populated the country along both banks of the fine 
stream still retaining their name, to its union with the 
Tombeckbee. It may also be stated, that this par- 
ticular tribe appeara, from old maps and records, to 
have been identical mth the Hillabees, the Allabees, 
the Ullaballis, &c., as their name is variously written 
by the older French and English writers— thus show- 
ing that the soft word Alabama, whose derivation has 
been much disputed, is compounded of Alaba, the 
name of the tribe, and the guttural ejaculation ma or 
me, so commonly used by the natives in conversation. 

At this residence of his father, the Kace Track, 
William Weatherfoed first opened his eyes upon 
the.scenes in which he was destined to j^erform so con- 
spicuous a part. The time of his birth is not certainly 
known, though it must have been about the year 1780, 
as he was but little over thirty at the commencement 
of the war in 1813. Under the instruction of his fa- 



weathehford, ok the iiEt) eagle. 267 

tKer, and his uncle, General McGillivi-ay, and of Gen- 
eral Le Clerc Milfort, young Weattierford, though he 
would not learn to read or write, acquired a very accu- 
rate knowledge of the English language, which was 
advanced and improved by visits to Pensacola and Mo- 
bile. But the mind of the young Indian, though 
grasping with singular readiness the knowledge thus 
imparted, was subject to stronger tastes and propensi- 
ties; and he indulged in all the wild pursuits and 
amusements of the youth of his nation, with an alac- 
rity and spirit which won their approval and admira- 
tion. He became one of the most active, athletic, and 
swift-footed participants in their various games and 
dances, and was particularly expert and successful as 
a hunter, in the use of the rifle and the bow. He was 
also noted, even in his youth, for his reckless daring as 
a rider, and his graceful feats of horsemanship- — which 
the fine stables of his father enabled him to indulge. 
To use the words of an old Indian woman who knew 
him at this period, ^' The squaws would quit hoeing 
corn, and smile and gaze upon him as he. rode by the 
corn-patch.^' 

As he grew to manhood, the wars of his people with 
the Chickasaws and Choctaws, and sanguinary excur- 
sions to the frontiers of Georgia and Tennessee, opened 
fields for the exercise of his talents as a wamor, and, 
in many perilous expeditions and adventures along the 
waters of the Chattahoochee and the Cumberland, — 
the Tombeckbee and the Tuscaloosa, the young 
chieftain denoted that prowess and indomitable energy 



268 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

of cliaracter, which laid the basis of his subsequent 
influence with his tribe. 

But, in addition to these military qualities, Weather- 
ford, at an early period, exhibited that more intellec- 
tual power, Eloquence, which always fascinates and 
Bways a savage people. His familiarity with the 
English language gave him a range of thought and 
facility of utterance, uncommon with native orators. 
The Muscogee language, like every other aboriginal 
tongue, being rude and uncultivated, was necessarily 
deficient in terms to express abstract ideas, or spiritual 
conceptions ; and consequently its speakers were forced, 
when attempting these, into circumlocutions and 
comparisons drawn from the physical world. Their 
language, so to speak, was as much a material growth, 
as the birds and the blossoms. They had no syno- 
nymes for such words as Peace, and Virtue — the 
white wing of the crane was the symbol of the one, 
and the clear brook, or the morning breeze, betokened 
the other. This accounts for the picturesque and 
figurative style of Indian oratory : a style admired by 
us, from its poetic nature, but whose beauties were not 
apparent to its authors and were felt as restraints 
and necessities. The familiarity of Weatherford with 
the English language enabled him, the more readily, 
to obviate these difficulties, and to give freer sco]3e, in 
expression, to his thoughts and feelings. This will be 
obvious, in the specimen we shall submit, of his 
oratory. Early, then, he acquired influence with his 
people, as an orator. His stirring appeals, unsm- 
passed in Muscogee tradition, roused them to the 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 269 

fight, or guided them in their deliberations, with a 
judgment and pcrs])icuity which commanded confi- 
dence and respect. It was thus that a master spirit 
may ever assert its superiority among an ignorant and 
barbarous people ; and the young orator and warrior 
soon found liimself elevated, by his own force of 
character, to a commanding position in the councils of 
his tribe. 

Such was Weatherford, in the earlier years of his 
manhood ; and, in further illustration of his character, 
we may here introduce a sketch given by Mr. Clai- 
borne, in his Notes on the War in the South. The 
reader will see that this sketch is by no partial hand. 
It was written while the author was incensed against 
our hero, for the atrocities committed in the war then 
recently concluded, — and an unjust coloring is given 
to the vices of his character. But we present the nar- 
rative unbroken, with only a slight change in the 
arrangement of its sentences : — 

"Fortune bestowed on Weatherford, genius, elo- 
quence, and courage. The first of these qualities 
enabled him to conceive great designs ; the last to exe- 
cute them ; while eloquence, bold, impressive, and 
figurative, furnished him with a passport to the favor 
of his countrymen and followers. Silent and reserved, 
unless when excited by some great occasion, and supe- 
rior to the weakness of rendering himself cheap by the 
frequency of his addresses, he delivered his opinions 
but seldom in council ; but, when he did so, he was 
listened to with delight and approbation. His judg- 
ment and eloquence had secured the respect of the old ; 



270 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

his vices made him the idol of the young and the unprin- 
cipled With avarice, treachery, and a thirst for 

blood, he combines lust, gluttony, and a devotion to 

every species of criminal carousal Passionately 

devoted to wealth, he had appropriated to himself a 
fine tract of land, improved and settled it ; and, from 
the profits of his father's pack, had decorated and em- 
bellished it. To it he retired occasionally, and, relaxing 
from the cares of State, he indulged in pleasures which 
are but rarely found to afibrd satisfaction to the devo- 
tees of ambition and fame In his person, he 

is tall, straight, and well proportioned ; his eye 
black, lively, penetrating, and indicative of courage and 
enterprize ; his nose prominent, thin, and elegant in 
its formation ; while all the features of his face, har- 
moniously arranged, speak an active and disciplined 

mind Such were the opposite and sometimes 

disgusting traits of character in the celebrated Weather- 
ford, the key and corner-stone of the Creek Confederacy." 
Though, we say, this portrait is somewhat too darkly 
shaded ; yet in 1812, Weatherford began to develope 
those features which rendered him odious to the Amer- 
ican people. In the spring of that year, the celebrated 
Tecumseh visited the Muscogee Indians, and endea- 
vored to enlist them in his famous conspiracy. His 
shrewd and penetrating mind at once discovered in 
the young chief of the Alabamas, as he had already 
become, a valuable ally for his designs, and, by making 
him his confident and principal war agent in the 
nation, he succeeded in winning him to his schemes. 
Weatherford had never liked the American people. 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 271 

He boasted that there was no Yankee blood in his 
veins. His uncle, Gen. McGillivray, had carefully 
instilled this hatred into his mind, and the Spaniards 
at Pensacola, had, by repeated appeals to his avarice 
and ambition, stimulated him to hostility. He looked 
upon the constant encroachments of the Americans 
upon the territories of his people, as foreboding the 
extinction of his tribe, or their reduction to slavery 
and want. Under all these motives, he entered hear- 
tily into the plans of Tecumseh, and began to prepare 
for war. Artful appeals were made to the supersti- 
tions and passions of the Indians. A chieftain, named 
Josiah Francis, or HiUishadjo, appeared as a Prophet, 
and claimed to have received direct revelations from 
the " Master of Breath," that no red-man should bo 
hurt in the war, but that the white people should ail 
be destroyed. As essential to this, however, the Indians 
were directed to abandon all the arts of civilization ; 
to destroy their clothing, ploughs and looms ; and 
to resume their old savage habits and modes of life. 
Numerous other prophets, male and female, among 
whom were Monohoe, and Sinquista, aided in inflam- 
ing the minds of the Indians. The substance of one 
of these prophecies may be gleaned from a letter of 
Col. Hawkins, in the American State Papers ; " The 
Great Spirit comes down to us in the sun : he comes 
down right over our heads. He has given us power to 
make thunder, and lightning, and earthquakes, and 
quagmires. He can make the ground open and swal- 
low up our enemies. He can draw circles around our 
nouses, and no white man can come in them, without 



272 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

falling down dead. He can rain down fire, and make 
tlie wind cut like hatchets. Be savages, and you shall 
be strong as the hurricane." 

With such fooleries, and by the stirring eloquence 
of Weatheiibrd, most of the Indians of the '' Upper 
Towns," those on the Alabama waters, were won to 
hostilities. The Indians of '^ the Lov/er Towns," upon 
the Chattahoochee, generally remained friendly. The 
hostile party became as completely free from the re- 
strictions of civilization as the most benevolent disci- 
ple of Jean Jacques could desire. 

It was the \vish of Weatherford, that an outbreak 
should not occur until the promised return of Tecum- 
seh from the North. As he reflected upon the mag ni- 
tude of the undertaking, and the j^ovv^er of the white 
foe, and as he found that a very large part of his own 
nation, including many of his near relatives and friends, 
who were among the most influential persons in the 
nation, would not join in hostilities, he began to h(^si- 
tate as to the course he had intended. He was now 
living on a fine plantation near the Holy Ground, "^ith 
his family, having many negroes, horses and stock 
about him. Finding that the storm of hostilities 
could not be allayed, he secretly went down to the 
residence of his half-brother, David Tait, on Little 
Kiver, (the present dividing line between Monroe and 
Baldwin Counties,) to consult him and his other rela- 
tives, among whom was his brother. Jack Weather- 
ford, as to what course he should pursue. They ad- 
vised him to fly with his family, negroes and other 



WEATHERFORD, OR THE RED EAC4LE. 273 

property, to their neighborhood ; and he started homo 
for that purpose. 

Meanwhile the hostiles, discovering Weatherford's 
absence, and suspecting liis purpose, seized his flimily, 
negroes, horses, and movable property, and took them 
to the Hickory Ground, shortly above Weturapka. 
. Weatherford, finding this, went to the Hickory 
Ground, and was told by the hostiles that they in- 
tended to keep his family and negroes as hostages, and 
would kill them and him, if he did not join in the 
war. Under this necessity, Weatherford revived his 
old determinations, from which unavoidable embarrass- 
ments had temporarily diverted him. He consented 
to swim with the stream which he could not stem. 

The ferocities of tlie two j^arties in the nation, and 
the Battle of Burnt Corn, which we elsewhere de- 
scribe, led at once to the attack upon Fort Mims. 
The particulars of that sanguinary affair are embodied 
in another sketch, and it is only necessary here to re- 
mark, that the worst features of the character of 
Weatherford, were then developed in dreadful hideous- 
ness. He, it is perhaps true, attempted, at first, to 
prevent the attack, but yielded to the importunities, 
of his warriors, and led them in the onset with a 
ferocity which no excuse can palliate. That he had 
some motives for wishing to avert this blow, will 
appear from circumstances we will now relate. 

Not long before the war Weatherford had sought in 
marriage, as a second wife, the daughter of Joseph 
Cornells, a white man, who had lonir resided amons: 
the Indians as an interiireter, and maiTied an Indian 



274 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

wife, by whom lie had five children. These were 
George, Alexander, and James, sons, and Anna and 
Lucy, daughters. The family was wealthy, and one of 
the most influential in the nation. Their residence was 
at Tuckabatchee, on the Tallapoosa. Alexander became 
a chief, and by an Indian wife was the father of Opothle 
Yoholo, now a distinguished chieftain of his tribe in 
Arkansas. Anna Cornells, shortly before the war, 
married a son of the Big Warrior, the principal leader 
of the friendly Indians. The other sons had the trading 
habits of their father, and acted as pedlars in different 
parts of the nation. The career of James was marked 
by some romantic incidents, which may form an in- 
teresting episode in our narrative, as showing the sin- 
gular modes of life and feeling among these denizens of 
the wilderness. 

Some years before the war, James Cornells had pur- 
chased, from one of the McGirts, a ferry on the Alabama 
Kiver, not far from the present town of Claiborne. 
Here, on a bold bluff overlooking the river, he resided 
with his niece, a handsome young half-breed. A man, 
named Jones, came to the place, with his wife, a fine- 
looking woman, who had no children. Cornells em- 
ployed Jones to keep the ferry, and soon fell in love 
with his wife. The charms of a buxom dame, with 
fair complexion and blue eyes, were too much for the 
half-forest Lothario. She returned his partiality, and 
Cornells, in a spirit of savage equity, proposed to Jones 
to give him his niece in exchange for his wife. The 
proposition was agreeable to all parties, and Cornells 
accordmgly took the dame, and removed to Burnt 



WEATHERFORD, OR THE RED EAGLE. 275 

Com, where the road from Pensacola branched off into 
the nation. Here he located himself, as an eligible 
point to deal with the Indians and pedlars trading to 
and from Pensacola, and with the emigrants from 
Georgia, who passed by this place on their way to the 
Tombeckbee settlements and to Mississippi. 

Jones, rejoicing in his new nuptials, remained at the 
ferry, having agreed to pay Cornells a portion of the 
receipts. He was, however, dissipated and drunken, 
and very reckless and desperate when under the influ- 
ence of liquor. The " green-eyed monster '' seems also 
to have speedily invaded his domestic sanctuary. On(- 
day, after having been off and got drunk, he returned 
home and found Jim Dale, a brother of the celebrated 
Canoe-Fighter, of whom we speak elsewhere, in his 
house, talking alone with his wife. This Dale was a 
very powerful man, but was lame from a crooked knee, 
which made one leg some two or three inches shorter 
than the other, and forced him to walk with a hobbling 
gait. The sight of the suspicious intruder in the shrine 
where he had ^' garnered up his hopes," at once roused 
all the Othello blood in the husband's bosom, and 
drawing his knife, he rushed upon him. Dale, albeit 
brave, was unarmed, and was forced to make a hasty 
and limping retreat into the yard, where, seizing a large 
weeding hoe, he turned and struck his pursuer with 
great force upon the top of the head. The blade passed 
transversely through the skull, but did not sever the 
cartilage of the brain. Jones fell senseless, with the 
hoe sticking fist in his head. Dale continued his 
hobbling flight, but the injured Desdemona sprang to 



276 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

her fallen lord, j)iilled out the hoe, and nursed him as 
well as she could. Savage hostilities had now broken 
out, and concealing her husband in a cane-brake, she 
carefully tended him until his recovery. 

After the war, Jones resumed the feny, but refused 
to pay Cornells' any portion of the receipts, or to 
recognize any title in him. The indignant owner hav- 
ing come to see Jones about it, he became very mad, 
and seizing his gun, attempted to shoot Cornells, who 
fled for safety. For several days he skulked abcut 
from one place to another, not having any weapon to 
defend himself with against his drunken and desperate 
pursuer. At last, he took refuge in the camp of Mc- 
Grirt, where he thought himself safe. But one morn- 
ing he was startled by the sound of a horse's feet, and 
looking out, saw Jones riding rapidly up, armed with 
a double-barrelled shot gun. Looking around for 
some weapon of defence, he could find nothing but an 
old rusty musket, which McGirt afterwards said, he 
believed had not been used since sometime in the war, 
and certainly had been loaded more than a year. The 
lock was all covered with rust and dirt. With this, 
Cornells sprang up, and, levelling it at Jones, ordered 
him to stop. The latter starting to raise his gun, 
Cornells cocked the old musket, and, pulling the trigger, 
the load went off and killed Jones dead on the spot. 

Cornells now got possession of the Feny, and re- 
ceived back his wife from Pensacola, whither she had 
been taken as a prisoner by McQueen's wamors and 
sold, after they had destroyed her husband's residence 
on Burnt Corn Creek, at the commencement of the wars 



WEATHERFORD, OR THE RED EAGLE. 277 

The " widow J ones" soon solaced herself ibr the loss 
of her drunken iind jealous spouse, in the arms of a 
second husband named Oliver. 

From this romantic but well-authenticated episode, 
we return to our main narrative. The youngest 
daughter of Joseph Cornells was Lucy, an extremely 
beautiful and spirited maiden of about seventeen or 
eighteen summers. With her Weatherford became 
passionately enamored, and his affections were recipro- 
cated. But hostilities breaking out just at this time, 
Joseph Cornells fled with his family to the Tensaw 
settlements and took shelter in Fort Mims. The 
presence of these and others to whom he was related, 
including the Taits, the Durants, the Baileys, and the 
Macnacs, rendered Weatherford unwilling to permit 
the massacre, and it is quite certain that he aj^prised 
some of the inmates of the intended assault. Of the 
few who escaped destruction, Cornells w^as one, not 
being in the fort at the time of the attack, and his 
daughter was taken to the nation by Weatheiford, 
Avith whom she remained during the war. The father 
took an active part on the American side, and was of 
essential service as a guide in our army. 

After his return from Fort Mims, Weatherford wiis, 
by general consent, declared the principal chief and 
wan'ior, or Tustenuggee, of the hostile Indians, and 
made every arrangement in his power to meet the 
approaching contest. We need not detail the particu- 
lars of that war ; they are a part of the permanent 
history of our country. In nearly all the battles that 
took place, Weatherford was present, and didtinghished 



278 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

himself for his generalship, intrepidity, and endurance. 
But what could be expected from the feeble numbers 
and resources of the Indians ? The invaders pressed 
through every part of the nation, with a celerity as 
astonishing as their power was irresistible. The bat- 
tle of Tallasha tehee was fought the third of November ; 
Talladega, the tenth ; Hillabee, the eighteenth ; Au- 
tossee, the twenty-ninth ; Emuckfaw, the twenty- 
second of January, 1814 ; Echanachaca, the twenty- 
third ; Enotichopco, the twenty-fourth ; Caleebe, the 
twenty-seventh ; and Tohopeka, or the Horse- Shoe, the 
twenty-seventh of March. These, with numerous 
smaller engagements, almost exterminated the nation. 
Not less than four thousand warriors are believed to 
have fallen victims to their wild fanaticism and mar- 
tyi'-like courage ! And is it not strange that, through 
all these bloody fields, the chieftain most hunted and 
exposed, should have passed without even a serious 
wound ? Some Fortune does indeed protect the 
Brave ! Let us cite a few instances, not more romantic 
than well authenticated. 

Echanachaca, or the Holy Ground, was the residence 
of Weatherford. The location of this spot has been, 
with some, a subject of uncertainty. Eaton, in his 
Life of Jackson, confounds it with the Hichory Ground, 
in the fork of the Coosa and Tallapoosa, and tradition 
has, in part, adopted the eiTor. The Holy Ground 
proper, however, was situated along the south bank of 
the Alabama, between Pintlala and Big Swamp Creeks, 
in the present county of Lowndes. It received its 
name from being the residence of the principal 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 279 

prophets of the nation, and having heen by them con- 
secrated from the intrusion of white men. Wizard 
circles were described around its borders, and the 
credulous inhabitants were assured that no enemy 
could tread upon its soil without being blasted. It 
was emphatically called the '' Grave of White Men." 
A more fertile and beautiful track of country, especi- 
ally when clothed with the vegetation of spring-time, 
does not exist in our State ; and it was thickly popu- 
lated by the aborigines. Near the mouth of Pintlala, 
stood a village of eighty wigwams. The chief town, 
a few miles below, contained two hundred houses ; 
and here the council house of the Alabama tribe was 
situated. At the beginning of the war, the Indians 
had removed their families and principal property to 
this place ; and it was also their main depot of ammu- 
nition and provisions. As the larger village was en- 
closed by pickets as well as magic circles, it was con- 
sidered impregnable to all assaults. But on the 23d of 
December, 1813, General Claiborne, at the head of 
the Mississippi militia, with a band of Choctaws 
under Pushmataha, their Chief, invaded the Holy 
Ground and destroyed its villages, after a desperate 
resistance, in which many were slain. The women 
and children barely had time to escape across the 
Alabama. Weatherford conducted this defence with 
great judgment and courage. But neither the prom- 
ises of the prophets nor the example of their chief 
could induce his followers to withstand the superior 
numbers and strength of the invaders. Weatherlbrd 
was the last to leave the field, and, in consequence, 



280 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

came near being taken prisoner. Though mounted 
upon a swift horse, he was so closely pursued by a 
body of dragoons, that the only chance of escape left 
him was to make his way across the river. He pressed on 
for this purpose, but was so hedged and encircled by 
his pursuers, that he was forced upon the summit of a 
bluff which beetles over the river with an elevation of 
nearly an hundred feet. Upon discovering his posi- 
tion, the chief checked his steed, and, gazing around, 
saw that his pursuers were at a short distance and 
approaching rapidly, with shouts of joy and derision. 
Quickly raising his rifle to his eye, he singled out the 
foremost pursuer, brought him to the ground, and 
then urging his horse with a sudden impulse, the noble 
animal, dashing down a steep ravine for about half the 
distance, leaped over the bluff, and the two were borne 
with dreadful rapidity to the water. The horse re- 
tained his upright position, and the rider his seat, 
until they were within a short distance of the stream; 
they then seperated; the horse sank to rise no more ; 
but the gallant Indian, unhurt by the fall, swam 
across the river, and escaped from his wondering and 
baffled j)ursuers. 

The battle of Tohopeka ]3ut an end to the hopes of 
Weatherford. This village was situated on a penin- 
sula, within the "horse-shoe bend" of the Tallaj)oosa. 
Here twelve hundred wamors, from the towns of Oak- 
fuskee, Hillabee, New Yauka, and Eufaula, had forti- 
fied themselves for a desperate struggle, assured by 
their prophets that the Master of Breath would now 
interpose in their favor. Across the neck of land, 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 281 

three hundred and fifty yards wide, that leads into the 
peninsula, they liad constructed powerful breastworks 
of hewn logs, eiglit or ten feet high, and pierced with 
double rows of port-holes, from which they could fire 
with perfect security. The selection of this spot and 
the character of its defences did great credit to the 
military genius of Weatherford — and his eloquence, 
more than usually persuasive and inspiriting, filled his 
devoted followers with a courage strangely compounded 
of fanaticism and despair. At an early hour in the 
morning. General Coffee's command having crossed 
the river and encircled the bend so as to cut off all es- 
cape. General Jackson opened his artillery upon the 
breastworks, and having but in part demolished them, 
ordered forward the thirty-ninth regiment to cany 
the place by storm. The van was gallantly led by 
Colonel Williams, Colonel Bunch, Lieutenant-Colonel 
Benton, and Major Montgomery. Amidst a most de- 
structive fire, they j)ressed to the breastworks, and 
desperately struggled for the command of the port- 
holes. But Major Montgomery, impatient at the de- 
lay, cried out to his men to follow him, and leaped 
upon the wall in face of the deadliest fire. For an in- 
stant he waved his sword over his head in triumph, 
but the next fell lifeless to the ground, shot through 
the head by a rifle ball. A more gallant spirit never 
achieved a nobler death, and the name of the young 
Tennesseean is preserved as a proud designation, by 
one of the richest counties, as well as by one of the most 
flourishing cities, in the State whose soil was baptized 
bv his blood ! 



282 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

The breastworks having been carried by storm, the 
Indians fell back among the trees, brush and timber of 
the peninsula, and kept up a spirited contest. But, 
in the meantime, a portion of Coffee's command, and 
some of the friendly warriors under their distinguished 
chieftain, Mcintosh^ had swam across the river, fired 
the village of Tohopeka, and carried off the canoes of 
the enemy. The followers of Weatherford now became 
desperate, and from the banks, hollows and other fast- 
nesses of the place, fought with fury, refusing all offers 
of quarter. The fight continued in severity for five 
hours ; and the going down of the sun was hailed by 
the survivors as furnishing them some chance of escape. 
But the hope was, in the main, deceptive. Already 
five hundred and fifty-seven lay dead upon the battle- 
field, and a great number now perished in the river. 
Not more than twenty warriors are believed to have 
escaped, under cover of the night.. Among these, 
strange enough, was the chieftain whose appellation, 
" the Murderer of Fort Mims," had formed the watch- 
word and war-cry of his enemies in this very engagement. 
Favored by the thick darkness, he floated down the 
river with his horse, until below the American lines, 
and then, reaching the shore, made his way in safety 
to the highlands south of the Tallapoosa, The i^rincipal 
prophets of the nation perished in this engagement. In 
wild and fantastic decorations, — -their heads and shoul- 
ders adorned with the plumage of the peacock and the 
flamingo, and with many jingling bells that kept music 
to their wizard contortions and dances, they had 
howled forth their incantations during the day ; but 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 283 

perished with their dehided followers. Monohoe, one 
of the principal, was struck by a cannon ball in the 
mouth, while in the very act of giving utterance to a 
burst of pretended inspiration. Is it wonderful that the 
simple and superstitious savages regarded this as a sig- 
nal and punishment of his impiety and falsehood ? 

After this battle, the hostile Indians generally came 
in and surrendered to General Jackson. A few, 
among whom were Francis, the prophet, and Peter 
McQueen, succeeded in escaping to Florida. The po- 
sition of Weatherford was painful in the extreme. 
He knew that he was an object of special vengeance 
and retaliation with the American commander, for the 
cruelties perpetrated at Fort Mims. He felt that he 
was properly regarded as the head and front of the 
whole offending. A talk of Gen. Jackson to the Hilla- 
bee tribe, at the beginning of the war, had come to his 
ears, in which that officer said, that " the instigators of 
the war, and the murderers of our citizens, must be 
sun*endered ; the latter must and will be made to feel 
the force of our resentment. Long shall they remem- 
ber Fort Mims in bitterness and tears." Weatherford 
could not consent to fly from the nation ; he felt that 
he owed it, as a duty to his people, not to abandon them 
until peace was restored. In this state of mind he was 
apprised that the American commander had set a price 
upon his head, and refused peace to the other chiefs, 
unless they should bring him either dead, or in con- 
finement, to the American camp, now at Fort Jackson, 
near the junction of the rivers. His determination 
was at once taken in the same spirit of heroism that 



284 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

always marked his conduct. Accordingly, mounting 
his horse, he made his way across the country, and 
soon appeared at the lines of the encampment. At 
his request, a sentinel conducted him to the presence 
of the commander-in-chief, who was seated in his 
marquee, in consultation with several of his principal 
officers. The stately and noble appearance of the 
warrior, at once excited the attention and surprise of 
the General, and he demanded of the Chief, his name 
and the purpose of his visit. 

In calm and deliberate tones, the chieftain said : 
" I am Weatherford. I have come to ask peace for 
myself and for my people." 

The mild dignity with which these words were ut- 
tered, no less than their import, struck the American 
commander with surprise. After a moment he ex- 
pressed his astonishment that one whose conduct at 
Fort Mims was so well known, and who must be con- 
scious that he deserved to die, should venture to ap- 
pear in his presence. "I had directed you to be 
brought to me confined. Had you appeared in that 
way, I should have known how to have treated you.'^ 

Weatherford, his brow becoming slightly clouded, 
and his voice deep but not tremulous, immediately 
answered : "I am in your power. Do with me as you 
please. I am a soldier. I have done the white people 
all the harm I could. I have fought them, and fought 
them bravely. If I yet had an army, I would fight 
and contend to the last. But I have none. My peo- 
ple are all gone. I can now do no more than weep 
over the misfortunes of my nation." 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 2S5 

The bold, dignified, and firm tone of this rei)ly 
struck a 8ym})athetic key in tlie commander's bosom. 
By intuitive perception the forest orator had discovered 
the only mode of address which, perhaps, could have 
softened the iron rigor of his conqueror's feelings : and 
the latter answered, in substance, that, while the only 
teims upon which the nation could be saved, were un- 
conditional submission, yet, he said, — ''as for yourself, 
if you do not like the terms, no advantage shall be 
taken of your ])resent surrender : you are at liberty to 
depart, and resume hostilities when you please. But, 
if you are taken then, your life shall pay the forfeit of 
your crimes." 

This answer appeared to Weatheiford, at first, as a 
little Ungenerous ; and, calmly folding his arms upon 
his bosom, he replied : "I desire peace for no selfish 
reasons, but that my nation maybe relieved from their 
sufierings ; for, inde})endent of the other consequences 
of the war, their cattle are destroyed, and their women 
and children destitute of provisions. But," he ex- 
claimed, '' I may well be addressed in such language 
now ! There was a time when I had a choice, and could 
have answered you. I have none now. Even hope has 
ended. Once I could animate my wamors to battle. 
But I cannot animate the dead. My warriors can no 
longer hear my voice. Their bones are at Talladega, 
Tallashatchee, Emuckfaw, and Tohopeka. I have 
not surrendered myself thoughtlessly. While there 
were chances of success, I never left my post, nor suj)- 
plicated j>eace. But my people are gone, and I now 
ask peace for my nation and myself On the miseries 



286 SKETCHES ANJ) fiSSAtS. 

and misfortunes brought upon my country, 1 look back 
with the deepest soitow, and wish to avert still greater 
calamities. If I had been left to contend with the 
Georgia army, I would have raised my corn on one 
bank of the river, and fought them on the other. But 
your people have destroyed my nation. General 
Jackson, you are a brave man : I am another. I do 
not fear to die. But I rely upon your generosity. 
You will exact no terms of a conquered and helpless 
people, but those to which they should accede. 
Whatever they may be^ it would now be folly and 
madness to oppose them. If they are opposed, you 
shall find me among the sternest enforcers of obedience. 
Those, who would still hold out, can only be influenced 
by a mean spirit of revenge. To this they must not, 
and shall not, sacrifice the last remnant of their coun- 
try. You have told us what we may do and be safe. 
Yours is a good talk, and my nation ought to listen 
to it. They shall listen to it !" 

This speech, pronounced with a calm, impressive 
voice, an erect attitude, and but little gesticulation, 
would have moved feelings less generous than those of 
Gen. Jackson. He at once acceded to the demands 
of Weatherford, and assured him of peace and safety 
for himself and people. As a specimen of oratory we 
know nothing finer than this address. It even surpasses 
the admired speech of Caractacus, the Briton, when 
led captive to Kome, and displays a, spirit which would 
have done credit to Napoleon, under similar circum- 
stances, after the Battle of Waterloo. In the ordinary 
characteristics of Indian eloquence, profuse imagery, 



WEATSERFORD, Oft TflE RED EAGLE. 287 

it is wanting. There is not a metaphor, simile, or 
superfluous phrase in the speech. But in this consists 
its excellence. Deep feeling ever utters itself in the 
plainest language, and does not stop to cull the flowers 
of rhetoric and fancy. Had Weatherford dealt in 
these, would he not undoubtedly have failed in securing 
deliverance from his perilous position ? 

Though the American commander was thus con- 
ciliated, there were many friendly chiefs in the encarnp- 
ment who did not readily acquiesce in the pardon of 
Weatlierford. Even during the delivery of the first 
part of his speech several guns were presented at him, 
and Tustenuggee Thlucco^ the Big Warrior, went so 
far as to attempt his life, being with difficulty restrained 
by Gen. Jackson. Weatherford never forgave this 
conduct of his old enemy, but, long after, spoke of it 
as proceeding from cowardice and malevolence. The 
fi'iendly Indians generally, however, treated the fallen 
chieftain, during his stay in camp, with the utmost 
deference. They seldom came in his presence, andj 
when any did, they were observed to quail before his 
eye, and tremble with fear. 

From this time, until the treaty of peace and cession, 
on the ninth of August, 1814, Weatherford was ac- 
tively engaged in inducing his friends and followers to 
accept the terms of submission offered by the Ameri- 
can General. After some weeks, he visited his rela- 
tives upon Little River, near Fort Mims, and endea- 
vored to collect together his negroes and cattle, at his 
plantation, in that quarter. But his life was in con- 
stant danger from the Steadhams and other survivors 



288 SKETCHES AND ESSAtS. 

of the massacre, and he went to Fort Claiborne, and 
received the i^rotection of Col. Kussell, the commander. 
Even here, however, the a,vengers were upon his track, 
and the commander thought it best to send him to the 
main army under Gen. Jackson. Accordingly, one 
dark, stormy night, he was secretly conducted by Ca]3- 
tain Laval, beyond the lines ; was mounted on a fine 
horse, and started off rapidly for the American Head- 
Quarters. Here he remained, under the immediate 
protection of General Jackson, until the conclusion of 
the treaty of peace and cession. In that treaty, so 
marked by its stern and dictatorial tone, the Creeks 
were forced to yield all their tenitory west of the Coosa 
and south of the Alabama. This had been the coun- 
try, principally, of the hostile party, and was demanded 
as the price of the war. Thus, the cruelties. perpe- 
trated at Fort Mims, and the mad policy of the 
fanatical chiefs and prophets, lost to the nation all the 
fine domains which subsequently became the State of 
Alabama. Truly does the gentle and sympathetic 
Bryant sing : — 

" And we have built our homes upon 

Fields where their generations sleep !" 

In this treaty it was stipulated that a township of 
land should be reserved in the ceded territory, to each 
of the heads of the Indian families, who had been 
friendly durmg the war. By this provision, the Taits, 
the Cornells, the Sizemores, and Jack Weatherford, 
the brother of the chieftain, and many others were 
secured in their possessions. They also took charge 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 289 

of the property of their distinguished but unfortunate 
relative, in this quarter. 

The war being over, General Jackson returned to 
Tennessee, taking with him several of the leading 
Indians. Among these, was his gallant and eloquent 
antagonist — Weatherford. The safety of the chief 
was the object of this act, and his presence was sedu- 
lously concealed. At the Hermitage he remained for 
nearly a year, (until after the seizure of Pensacola by 
Jackson,) and then returned to his relatives upon 
Little River. He brought with him two fine horses, — 
one of them a splendid blooded animal, — which had 
been presented to him by General Jackson. His rela- 
tives soon restored to him his property, and generously 
granted to him portions of their reservations, for a 
plantation. Such of his negroes, horses and cattle as 
had not been destroyed, were now brought from the 
interior of the nation, and served to re-instate the 
chief in somewhat of his ancient wealth. Hi^ home, 
to which his family repaired, was located in a tine 
live-oak grove upon the banks of Little River. 

Here, almost within sight of the scene of his greatest 
cruelties, the chief of many a hard-fought field, pur- 
sued the peaceful occupations of a farmer. Gradually 
the country about him filled up with that race against 
whom his hand had been lifted with so much violence : 
but we know not that his quiet or repose was ever dis- 
turbed by unfriendliness or intrusion, except on one or 
two occasions, by the still revengeful Steadhams, who 
were eventually propitiated by the explanations of the 
chief and his friends. The character of the man seemed 



290 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

to have been changed by the war. He was no longer 
cruel, vindictive, idle, intemperate, or fond of display. 
But, surrounded by his family, he preserved a dignified 
and retiring demeanor ; was industrious, sober, and 
economical ; and was a kind and indulgent master to 
his servants, of whom he had many. A gentleman, 
who had favorable opportunities of judging, says of 
him, that ^^in his intercourse with the whites, his 
bearing was marked by nobleness of purpose, and his 
conduct was always honorable. No man was more 
fastidious in complying with his engagements. His 
word was by him held to be more sacred than the most 
binding legal obligation. Art and dissimulation formed 
no part of his character. Ever frank and guileless, no 
one had the more entire confidence of those among 
whom he lived." Another gentleman, who knew 
Weatherford intimately for a number of years, informs 
me that " he possessed remarkable intellectual powers : 
that his perceptions were quick almost to intuition, his 
memory tenacious, his imagination vivid, his judgment 
strong and accurate, and his language copious, fluent 
and expressive. In short," he says, '^^Weatherford 
possessed naturally one of the finest minds our country 
has produced." 

These traits of character, exhibited for a number of 
years, won for their possessor, the esteem and respect 
of those who knew him, notwithstanding the circum- 
stances of his earlier life. Indeed, those circumstances 
threw around the man a romance of character, which 
made him the more attractive. After the bitterness, 
which the war engenered; had subsided, his naiTatives 



WEATHERFORD, OR THE RED EAGLE. 291 

were listened to with interest and curiosity. Though 
unwilling, generally, to speak of his adventures, he 
would, when his confidence was obtained, describe them 
with a graphic particularity and coloring, which gave an 
insight into conditions of life and phases of character, 
of which we can now only see the outside. He always 
extenuated his conduct at Fort Minis and durinij the 
war, under the plea that the first transgressions were 
committted by the white people, and that he was 
fighting for the liberties of his nation. He also asserted 
that he was reluctantly forced into the war, as has been 
described. 

There are many characteristic anecdotes of Weather- 
ford, in the last years of his life. We can preserve 
but one. A desperado named Callier, had committed 
a murder at Claiborne, and being armed, refused to 
be taken by the sheriff, and swore he would kill any 
man who approached him. The posse had been sum- 
moned, but were deten-ed by the threats of the 
criminal. At last, it was suggested that Weafherford 
was in the village, and if summoned would take him. 
The sheriff sought the chief, and, informing him of the 
circumstances, asked if he would make the attempt ? 
" If you order me, I will do my duty," was the reply. 
" Then I order you to take him, dead or alive,'' — said 
the sherift', and the two proceeded to the ground. Callier 
was standing in an open square, with a drawm butcher- 
knife in -his hand. Weatherford, loosening a knife 
which he wore in his girdle, immediately approached 
him, and ordered him to surrender. He replied only 
in a* husky voice, " Keep off I " Nothing daunted, 



292 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

Weatherford marched immediately up to him ; he 
dropped the point of his knife ; it was wrested from 
his hand; and he was delivered, a prisoner, to the 
officers of the law. Weatherford, being asked of his 
design in case of resistance, replied : "I fixed my eye 
upon his as I approached, and, if he had moved a muscle 
to strike, I should have dodged his blow, and cut his 
throat before he recovered.'' There is no doubt the 
chief understood the business he was about. 

Weatherford continued to reside at his plantation 
until the spring of 1824. In that year, we find the 
following notice in a Mobile paper, with which we 
may draw our sketch to a close : 

" William Weatherford, the celebrated savage war- 
rior, is, at length, vanquished, — the destroyer is con- 
quered, — the hand, which so profusely dealt death 
and desolation among the whites, is now paralyzed, — 
it is motionless. He died at his late residence near 
Montpelier, in this State, on the 9th of D^arch instant. 
His deeds of war are well known to the early settlers 
in South Alabama, and will be remembered by them 
while they live, and be talked of, with horror, by gen- 
erations yet unborn. But his dauntless sj^irit has 
taken its flight : he is gone to the land of his fathers." 

Weatherford left behind him, a large family of chil- 
dren. They have now grown to years of maturity ; 
have intermarried with our own population, and are 
highly respected for many excellent traits of character. 
A grand-nephew of his is now the United States' 
Consul at Cadiz, in Spain. No monument marks the 
spot where the remains of the distinguished chieftain 



OR THE RED EAGLE. 293 

were deposited,* but yet no unfit inscription for his 
grave might be found in the words which Wordsworth 
has applied to Rob Roy : — 

" And thou, altliougli with some wild thoughts, 
Wild chieftain of a savage clan, 
Hads't this to boast, that thou didst love 
The liberty of man /" 



* Recently, arrangements have been made by the descendants oi 
Weatherford, to erect a monument to his memory, with suitable in- 
scriptions. 



THE CANOE FICxHT; 

With a Sketch of the First American Settle- 
ments IN THE Interior of Alabama, and of 

MANY EoMANTIC AND SANGUINARY INCIDENTS IN 

THE Creek War. Also, Biographies of Gen- 
eral Sam. Dale, Jere. Austill, and James 
Smith, the Heroes of that Fight. 



" The aged crone 

Recounts the scenes of strife and daring gone : 
Tells how the Indian scalped the helpless child, 
And bore the shrieking mother to the wild, — 
Butchered the father hastening to his home, 
Seeking his cottage, finding but a tomb." 

J. G. C. Brainard. 

There lias seldom occurred in border warftire, a 
more romantic incident than the one known in Alabama 
tradition, as the Canoe Fight. History has almost 
overlooked it, as too minute in its details for her 
stately '^philosophy." Yet, for singularity of event, 
novelty of position, boldness of design, and effective 
personal fortitude and prowess, it is unsurpassed, if 
equalled, by anything in backwoods chronicles, how- 



296 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

ever replete these may be with the adventures of pio- 
neers, the suiferings of settlers, and the achievements 
of that class who seem almost to have combined the 
life and manners of the freebooter with the better vir- 
tues of social man. A detailed account will illustrate 
somewhat of this, and show, partially at least, the 
characteristics of the first white settlers, along the 
Alabama and Tombeckbee, and the difficulties they 
encountered and overcame. 

The Canoe Fight was one of the early consequences 
of the massacre at Fort Mims. The friends and rela- 
tives of the sufferers in that sanguinary affair were 
roused to almost savage indignation and hostility. 
They were men well calculated, both by nature and 
habits of life, to meet such an emergency. With no 
dependence but the axe and the rifle, they had brought 
their families through the wilderness, and made them 
homes upon the table-plains and rich alluvial bottoms 
of our two principal streams. The character and 
habits of the Indians, they understood well ; their 
stratagems in warfare, their guile and cunning. With 
a flexibility of nature, that still retained its superiority, 
they accommodated themselves to these, and were pre- 
pared, as far as their limited numbers would go, for 
the necessities of either peace or war. To a spectator, 
the strange buckskin garb, the hunting-shirt, leggings 
and moccasins, the long and heavy rifle, the large knife 
swinging by the shot-bag, the proud, erect deportment, 
but cautious tread, and the keen, far-seeing, but appa- 
rently passive eye, of the settler in the fork of the Ala- 
bama and Tombeckbee, upon the Tensaw, or about 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 297 

Fort St. Stephens, would have spoken much of the 
moral energies and purposes of the man. Of such an 
order were most of those who determined to avenge 
the butchery of their neighbors, by Weatherford, at 
Fort Mims. 

But before proceeding to narrate the particulars of 
the Canoe Fight, we will look at the situation of the 
settlements in the interior of Alabama, more immedi- 
ately connected with that event, and nan-ate some of 
the more interesting incidents in their history, which 
led to the singular and sanguinary occurrence. They 
are in themselves sufficiently romantic to attract and 
repay perusal. 

The extensive delta, forming Clarke County, was 
originally obtained from the Choctaws, by the British, 
under a treaty made at Mobile, the 26 th of March, 1765. 
The boundary of the entire British acquisitions in West 
Florida was then designated as follows : '^ by a line 
extended from Grosse Point, in the island of Mon 
Louis, by the course of the western coast of Mobile Bay, 
to the mouth of the eastern branch of Tombeckbee 
River, and north, by the course of the said river, to the 
confluence of Alebamont and Tombeckbee Rivers, and 
afterwards along the western bank of Alebamont River 
to the mouth of Chickasaw River, and from the con- 
fluence of Chickasaw and Alebamont Rivers, a straight 
line to the confluence of Bance and Tombeckbee Rivers ; 
from thence, by a line along the western bank of Bance 
River, till its confluence with the Tallotkpe River ; 
from thence, by a straight line, to Tombeckbee River, 
opposite to Alclialickpe ; and from Alchalick})e, by a 



298 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

straight line, to the most northerly part of Buckatanne 
Kiver, and down the course of Buckatanne Kiver to its 
confluence to the Kiver Pascagoula, and down by the 
course of the Kiver Pascagoula, within twelve leagues 
of the sea coast ; and thence, by a due west line, as far 
as the Choctaw nation have a right to grant." 

This treaty was signed by George Johnstone, 
Governor of West Florida, John Stewart, Superinten- 
dent of the Southern District, and twenty-nine Kings 
and Chiefs of Indians.'*' It is now mainly interesting 
as preserving the names by which several of our prin- 
cipal rivers were aboriginally known. The Alabama 
below the junction was called the Tombeckbee ; the 
Cahaba was styled the Chickasaw, and the Black 
Warrior the Bance. The Choctaws, also, claimed 
much farther to the east than was then or subsequently 
recognized by the Creeks. 

But few white men penetrated into this region dur- 
ing the British and Spanish times, and when the 
Americans began to take possession, about the com- 
mencement of the present century, they had to deter- 
mine a new line with the conflicting Indian claimants. 
This was done in a treaty, made by Silas Dinsmoor and 
James Kobertson, U. S. Commissioners, at Mount 
Dexter, in November, 1805. The new boundary of 
the white possessions was a line runniag north from 
Nanahubba, or the Cut-Off Island, along the dividing 
ridge between the Alabama and Tombeckbee waters, to 
the " Choctaw Corner," and thence westwardly to the 
mouth of Fluctabunna Creek on the Tombeckbee. 



* American State Pap'^rs. Public Lands, v. 814. 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 299 

Within the diminislied .'irca, thus {icrjuhed, emi- 
grants, from South Carohna, Georgia, and Tennessee, 
poured rapidly for the first twelve years of the T)resent 
century. These were the people destined to encountei- 
the savage hostilities of the Creeks, after tlie Fall of 
Fort Minis, and whose characteristics have been de- 
scribed. Those nearest the border speedily erected 
stockade defences, and took refuge in them, with their 
families, servants, and moveable chattels and effects. 
Fort Sinquefield was erected a short distance north- 
east of Grove Hill, the present Court House of Clarke 
county ; Fort White, some miles west of it ; and Fort 
Glass, fifteen miles to the south, upon tlie dividing 
ridcre between Cedar and Bassett's Creeks, and about 
three miles south from the present village of Suggs- 
ville. They received their names from the settlers 
upon whose premises they were established, and were 
densely crowded by the terrified inhabitants. 

Around these border forts or stations, the hostile 
Indians were continually prowling, — burning and lay- 
ing waste the faims, killing the cattle, and murdering 
every white person they could meet. The utmost 
ten'or and insecurity prevailed. 

To give protection to these settlements. General 
Floyd, of Georgia, then in command of the South- 
western forces of the United States, ordered General 
Claiborne, in July, 1813, to march his command of 
Mississippi Twelve-months' Volunteers, to Fort Stod- 
dart, and thence to yield assistance to the most ex- 
posed points to the east. At the close of that month, he 
arrived with seven hundred men, and sent two hundred 



300 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

of them under Col. Joseph E. Carson, a gallant volun- 
teer, who lived near Mount Vernon, to the relief of 
Fort Glass, which he rebuilt near by and called Fort 
Madison in honor of the President. The refugee 
settlers in this station were under the command of 
Captain Evan Austill, a native of North Carolina, 
who had emigrated to this section, the year before, 
and located on a farm three miles from the fort. 

Within two days after the massacre at Fort Mims, 
a large body of warriors, under Francis, the Prophet, 
appeared in the vicinity of Fort Sinquefield, the most 
exposed station, and massacred twelve members of the 
families of Abner James and Eansom Kimball, who 
rashly remained at the residence of the latter, two 
miles from the fort. Five persons escaped, one of 
whom was I sham Kimball, then a boy of sixteen, af- 
terwards Clerk of the Circuit Court of Clarke County, 
where he still resides. Another was Mrs. Sarah Merrill, 
a married daughter of Abner James, who was destined 
to have a romantic history. She was knocked down 
by the Indians, scalped and left for dead. In the 
night, she revived, and, groping among the corpses, 
found her infant son, not a year old, who was also 
scalped, and apparently lifeless. With the utmost 
exertion, she made her way to the Fort, where she and 
her infant were gradually restored to health. Her 
husband was at this time absent, with the troops under 
Claiborne, and, on the march to the Holy Ground, 
heard that his wife and children were both slain. In 
the Battle at that place, he was severely wounded 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 301 

and reported as dead ; but recovering, made his way to 
Tennessee. 

Eacji party thus believing the other dead, Mrs. 
Merrill, some years after, married, and became the 
mother of a large family, residing in Clarke County, 
near the Choctaw Corner. She was happy, and some 
of her children had grown to maturity, when one 
evening a traveler with his family, a matronly wife 
and several children, stopped at the house of Mrs. 
Merrill. Great was her astonishment and consterna- 
tion to find in the stranger her first husband ; and his, 
none the less, to recognize his former wife. An expla- 
nation ensued, and, to the satisfaction of all parties, it 
was agi'eed that matters should remain as they had 
been providentially disposed. The traveler went on 
his way to Texas, and Mrs. Merrill continues to reside 
in Clarke, esteemed and respected by all who know 
her. 

The news of the massacre of these families, reaching 
Fort Madison, a detachment of ten men, among 
whom were James Smith, John Wood, and Isaac Ha- 
den, were sent to the spot. They found the bodies of 
the dead, and took them to Sinquefield for burial. 
While the whole garrison of that little station, includ- 
ing the women and children, were outside of the fort, 
engaged in this ceremony, Francis and his warriors sud- 
denly rushed down towards them from behind a neigh- 
boring hill. All escaped in safety to the fort, except a 
few women who had gone some distance to a spring. 
Seeing the Indians about to intercept these, Haden, 
who happened to be on horse-back, with a large jiack of 



302 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

dogs, whicli he kept for limiting, immediately daslied 
forward, and cheered his dogs, with many others from 
the fort, numbering in all about sixty, to an assault 
ujion the savages. Never did a pack of English hounds 
leap more furiously upon a captured fox, than did 
these wild curs upon the naked Indians. The neces- 
sity of defence against their strange foes, checked the 
savage onset, and all the women, but one, a Mrs. Phil- 
lips, who was overtaken and scalped, escaj)ed with 
Haden into the fort. His horse was killed under him, 
and he had five bullets through his clothes, but re- 
ceived no wound. 

The incensed Francis and his followers now made 
a furious attack upon the fort, but were repulsed with 
a considerable loss. Only one man and a boy of the 
defenders were slain. The Indians, having drawn off, 
the occupants of Sinquefield that night stealthily aban- 
doned the place and fled to Fort Madison. 

Meanwhile, Col. Carson had despatched Jerry Au- 
stin, a youth of nineteen, to Gen. Claiborne, at Fort 
Stoddart, for aid to drive away the Indians, who had 
killed one of his men, named Stewart, within five hun- 
dred yards of the gate. The youthful emissary trav- 
eled through the woods all night, and reached the 
G-eneral at day-break, greatly to his surprise and ad- 
miration. No assistance, however, could be sent, and 
Austin bore back an order to Carson to evacuate his 
defences and retire, v^ith the inhabitants, to St. 
Stephens. 

This order produced the greatest dissatisfaction, and 
Captain Evan Austill, the father of our young hero, 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 303 

and fifty other men, with their families, determined to 
remain. Four hundred persons left with Carson's 
command, amid a scene of great distress and lamenta- 
tion at the se2)aration of friends and relatives, who 
never expected to meet again. The little garrison re- 
maining behind, protected themselves with the utmost 
vigilance, until at length Clairborne again despatched 
Carson's command to re-possess the fort. 

During the occupation of Fort Madison, frequent 
parties of the more adventurous woodsmen made scout- 
ing excursions into the suiTounding country, to watch 
the proceedings of the Indians. One of these advanced 
across the Alabama, as far as the destroyed residence 
of Cornells on Burnt Corn Creek, at the crossing of 
the Pensacola road. This party consisted of Tandy 
Walker, formerly the Government blacksmith at St. 
Stephens, but a most experienced and daring back- 
woodsman ; George Foster, an expert hunter ; and a 
bold quadroon mulatto, named Evans. When near 
the place, Evans dismounted, and, leaving his horse 
with his companions, stealthily approached to make 
observations. In a field, he saw an Indian, at a short 
distance, digging potatoes. He at once shot him, and, 
after some minutes, not seeing any other Indians, he 
entered the field and took the scalp of his victim. 
Returning to his companions, they examined the 
premises and found, on the opposite side of the field, 
the cam]) and baggage of a considerable party of Indians 
who had fled at the sound of Evans' gun. With this 
booty, the three adventurers now hastened towards the 
Alabama. At Sizemore's deserted old place, near ih« 



304 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

river, they found a field of corn nearly ripe, with, a 
plenty of fine grass. Though they saw many fresh 
moccasin tracks and other signs of Indians, they deter- 
mined to stop here to feed their horses and to pass the 
night. They accordingly went a short distance into 
the field, and, as it was a cool November evening, 
kindled a small fire and laid down to sleep. In the 
night, Foster had a strange and alarming dream, or 
" vision,'' as he termed it, which awoke him and filled 
him with apprehension. Arousing his comrades, and 
telling his dream, he urged them to leave the spot, 
as he felt they were in danger there from the Indians. 
They made light of his fears, and lapsed back into 
slumber. He however arose, and going still farther 
into the field, threw himself down in the high grass, 
and went to sleep. At the dawn of day, he was roused 
by a volley of guns fired upon his companions, and fled 
with all haste into a neighboring cane-brake, through 
which he made his way to the river, and swimming it, 
safely reached the fort. 

After two days Tandy Walker came in, severely 
wounded, — ^his arm being broken by several balls, and his 
side badly bruised by a ball which struck a butcher- 
knife in his belt. It appeared that the Indians had waited 
until the first faint light of day to make their attack. 
They then fired some five or six guns and rushed for- 
ward with their knives. Evans was killed ; but Walker, 
though wounded, sprang from the ground, and ran 
through the corn and high grass. Being very swift of 
foot, he outstripped his pursuers, and soon got into 
the cane-brake, where he lay concealed till night, 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 305 

6uffcnii<^ greatly from his wounds. Then he proceeded 
to the river, and making a raft of canes, to which h(^ 
hung by his well arm, swam across the river. He was 
so feeble from the loss of blood and from pain, that it 
took him all that night and the next day to reach Fort 
Madison. 

Shortly before this occm-rence. Col. Willian McGrew, 
with twenty-five mounted men, had fought a battle 
with a party of Indians, on Tallahatta or Barshi Creek, 
near the northern boundary, in which he with three of 
his company was killed ; and Gen. Claiborne, with a 
small command of Mississippi volunteers, under Major 
Hinds, had traversed the country as far as Baker's 
Bluff, on the Alabama, losing in a skirmish Capt. 
William Bradberry, a young lawyer, who had distin- 
guished himself at Burnt Corn. 

The inmates of Fort Madison, incensed at these san- 
guinary events, and satisfied that the body of the hostile 
Indians was now south of the Alabama, extending their 
depredations upon the plantations along that river, de- 
termined to make an expedition against them. This 
was at once organized ; consisting of thirty " Mississippi 
twelve-months' yauger men," commanded by Capt. 
Richard Jones, from near Natchez, where he now re- 
sides, and forty-two volunteers, from the " settlers " 
themselves, commanded by Capt. Samuel Dale, who 
also had command of the expedition. A bolder or a 
finer set of men, for such a service, never swung their 
shot-bags by their sides, or grasped their long and 
trusty rifles. It may be well to look particularly at 



306 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

the character of three, who were destined to act the 
most conspicuous part in the events that are to follow. 

SAMUEL DALE. 

Was there ever a more Herculean figure than 
Samuel Dale, then in the noon and fulness of man- 
hood ? He stood a giant among his fellows, — already 
distinguished hj feats of prowess, daring and enter- 
prise, that had made his name known throughout the 
frontiers, and caused him to be dreaded more than any- 
other white man by the Indians. They called him, in 
their simple tongue, Sam Thlucco, or Big Sam. 
Descended from Irish lineage, he was born in Rock- 
bridge County, Virginia, in 1772. Twelve years after, 
his parents removed to Green County, Georgia, then 
on the border of the hostile Creeks. Here, among 
continued troubles and bloody forays, he grew to man- 
hood, the eldest of eight children, left orphans by the 
death of both their parents. In 1794, he joined Capt. 
Fosh's troop stationed at Fort Matthews on the 
Oconee, and distinguished himself, in several encoun- 
ters, for his courage, enterprise, and masterly knowledge 
of Indian character. On one occasion, when out as a 
solitary scout, at a great distance from the fort, he 
stopped at a spring to drink, and, as he knelt down 
for that purpose, two Muscogee warriors leaped from 
behind a log and sprung upon him, with their knives 
and tomahawks. Throwing one of them over his head, 
he o:raiPpled with the other, and plunged his knife in 
his bodv. Both of them now closed, but Dale, by his 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 307 

great strength and dexterity, in a few seconds laid them 
dead at his feet. Though wounded himself in five 
places, he retraced their trail nine miles, to their camp, 
where he saw three warriors asleep, with a white female 
prisoner. Rushing suddenly upon them he slew them 
all, and turning, had just cut the thongs of the woman, 
when a fourth warrior sprang from behind a tree, knife 
in hand, upon the bent body of the wounded and ex- 
hausted Dale, and brought him to the ground. With 
a wild scream of vengeance, the savage swung aloft his 
knife to give the deadly blow, when the woman, who 
had seized a tomahawk, dashed it into his head, and 
he fell lifeless upon the body of her preserver. They 
then safely proceeded to Fort Matthews. 

Elected Colonel, Dale was advanced to the com- 
mand of a frontier post on the Apalachy, where he 
made himself the terror of the Red Men, and the 
shield of the settlements, till McGillivray concluded 
peace with Washington at New York. 

Frontier tastes and aptitudes now converted the 
young soldier into an Indian trader, and we find him 
among the Cherokees and Creeks, exchanging calicoes, 
gewgaws, ammunition, fire-waters, &c., brought from 
Savannah and Augusta, for peltries and ponies. The 
profits of this trade were exorbitant, and would have 
enriched Dale, but he was as thriftless as he was ad- 
venturous and brave. 

Desirous of becoming acquainted with the settle- 
ments upon the Tombeckbee, Big Sam made his way 
thither about the year 1808, accompanied by a party 
of emigrants, among whom was his younger brother, 



308 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

James Dale, like himself a bold and powerful man, 
but who had been unfortunately wounded in one of 
the knees, so that a contraction of the muscle took 
place, making one leg two or three inches shorter than 
the other. 

A series of expeditions to and from Greorgia, in which 
he acted as guide for travelers and emigrating parties, 
with occasional protracted loiterings in the Indian 
villages, taking part in their athletic sports and games, 
and surpassing their swiftest and most powerful cham- 
pions, now engaged our hero for a number of years. 
He also acted as a spy for our government, upon the 
operations of the Spaniards at Pensacola and Mobile, 
who, at the instigation of the British, were constantly 
exciting the Indians to hostility. In this capacity, he 
was greatly useful in counteracting the schemes of a 
notorious English emissary named Elliott, who was 
most energetic in fomenting discord. He also encoun- 
tered Tecumseh, in the Tuckabatchee towns on the 
Tallapoosa, and first apprised the incredulous Hawkins, 
the United States agent, of the schemes of that bold 
and ambitious chieftain. 

Dale was at the house of Colonel Joseph Phillips, at 
Jackson, on the Tombeckbee, in July, 1813, when James 
Cornells, mounted on a fast-flying grey horse, brought 
the intelligence that a large body of hostile warriors 
from the towns on the Tallapoosa, had burnt his house 
and corn-cribs, at a creek, afterwards called Burnt 
Corn, from that event, and taken his wife prisoner to 
Pensacola, where they had gone to receive arms and 
ammunition from the Spaniards and British. The 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 309 

startled settlements at once sprung to aims, and marched 
under Col. James Callier, to cut off the Indians on 
their return. In this expedition, Dale was Captain of 
the company from Clarke county. The unfortunate 
result of the battle is narrated elsewhere. But Dale 
performed miracles of valor, and was one of the last to 
leave the field, which he did not do until he received a 
severe wound in the breast, from a rifle ball, which 
glanced around a rib and came out at his back. For 
several weeks he suffered greatly from this wound, but 
at length fully recovered so as to take part in the expe- 
dition we are proceeding to describe. 

JAMES SMITH. 

In Dale's command was a private soldier, who al- 
ready had a high reputation as an expert, daring, and 
powerful Indian fighter. Born in Georgia, in 1787, 
this scion of the universal Smith family was now a very 
stout, finely proportioned man, five feet eight inches 
high, weighing one hundred and sixty pounds. Re- 
siding near Fort Madison, he took refuge there at the 
outbreak of the war. His fearless and adventurous 
character may be indicated by an incident. One day 
he determined to visit his farm, about eight miles dis- 
tant, to see what injury the Indians had done. Pro- 
ceeding cautiously, he came to a house in which he 
heard a noise, and, stealing up to the door, he found 
two Indians engaged in bundling up tools and otlier 
articles, to carry them off. Leveling his gun at them, 
he made them come out of the house, and march be- 



310 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

fore him towards the Fort. In a thicket of woods, the 
Indians suddenly separated, one on each hand, and ran. 
Smith fired at one of them and killed him, and, drop- 
ping his rifle, pursued the other, and, catching him, 
knocked him down with a light wood-knot, and beat 
out his brains. Kecovering his gun, he went on to 
the Fort, and announced the adventure, which a par- 
ty, who were sent out, discovered to be true. 

This, and similar deeds of daring and prowess, gave 
James Smith a high position among his frontier friends 
and neighbors, as he took his place, rifle in hand, with 
buckskin garb, in the ranks of Captain Dale's adven- 
turous volunteers. 

JEREMIAH AUSTILL. 

That tall, slender, sinewy youth of nineteen, six 
feet two inches high, erect and spirited in port, dark 
complexioned, eagle-eyed, is the son of a gallant sire, 
who, even since hostilities commenced, had made his 
way back from Georgia, through the heart of the Creek 
nation, swimming the streams, and stealing through 
the woods, to his family, in Fort Madison, there to as- 
assume, by election, the temporary command. Such 
was Evan Austill, a native of North 'Carolina, and the 
son was worthy of the sire. "Jerry'' was born in 
Pendleton District, South Carolina, the 10th of Au- 
gust, 1794. Four years after, his father went as a 
gunsmith, with Silas Dinsmore, the agent to the Cher- 
okees, to reside in the nation. In 1813, the family 
removed to the vicinity of Fort Madison. Driven 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 311 

from their residence by the Indians, during the absence 
of his fixther, young Austill returned to the spot, put 
up the fences, and kept a close guard, lying at night 
in the grass, or thick undergrowth near the farm, to 
protect the growing crop from the depredations of 
straggling Indians. 

We have seen how he was sent, soon after, for as- 
sistance to General Claiborne, and how gallantly he 
performed that hazardous service. On one occasion 
he was dispatched with a party of five, to guard a 
wagon to a mill for meal. On their return, a fire 
was opened on a party of Indians, from the opposite 
side of the fort, at which all of the guard, save Austill, 
immediately fled from the wagon. With character- 
istic firamess and fidelity, he remained, and no assault 
being made, drove the wagon, with its precious con- 
tents, in safety to the fort, amidst the applause of the 
gaiTison, who derided his timid companions. 

" Jeny," was now very little more than a boy in 
age, but his skill as a marksman, his swiftness of foot, 
his dauntless courage, and his deep knowledge of In- 
dian schemes and cunning, acquired among the 
Cherokees, render him one of the most useful 
and manly of the frontier defenders. We have 
said that he was' slender, but look at his muscular 
limbs, as revealed through his hunting shirt closely 
girdled around his waist, and his tight leather leggings, 
and you may appreciate that his frame, weighing as 
it did one hundred and seventy pounds, is possessed of 
all those powers which are most serviceable in the 
hardships and encounters of backwoods warfare. 



312 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

These three, Dale, Smith and Aiistill, were the 
leading spirits in the expedition, fitted out under the 
command of Dale, for the exploration of the country 
along the Alabama Kiver. The party left Fort Mad- 
ison on the 11th of November, 1813. It proceeded 
southeasterly, under the guidance of Tandy Walker 
and G-eorge Foster, of whom we have spoken, to a point 
on the river, two miles below " Bailey's Shoals,'' and 
about eighteen miles below the present town of Clai- 
borne. Here they found two canoes, carefully con- 
cealed in the inlet of a small creek, in which the 
entire party crossed to the eastern bank, and passed 
the night in concealment and under arms, no one be- 
ing allowed to sleep. They were at this point with- 
in thirty miles of the ruins of Fort Mims. 

The next morning the party ascended the river ; 
Austin with six men in the canoes ; and Dale, with 
the remainder, through the woods upon the eastern 
bank. No signs of Indians were discovered until 
their amval at " Peggy Bailey's Bluff, " thi'ee miles 
above. Pursuing these, which led up the river, Dale, 
being in advance of his men, soon came upon a party 
of ten Indians, who were, with all imaginary security, 
partaking of a bountiful breakfast. His unfailing 
rifle dismissed them without a benediction ; the chief, 
a noted warrior, being slain, and his followers, in their 
hunied flight, leaving their well-stored pack of pro- 
visions behind them. 

One mile higher up the stream Dale's party came 
to a field known as Randon's farm. This was a few 
miles below Claiborne and one hundred and five miles, 



/ 



1/ 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 313 

by the course of the river, above Mobile. Here, upon 
consultation with Austill, it was concluded that the 
main party should re-cross the river to its western 
bank. For this purpose the canoes were put in 
requisition, and the men were cautiously and with as 
much swiftness as possible conveyed across the stream. 

The river, at this point, was about four hundred 
yards wide. Its banks were irregular, somewhat pre- 
cipitous, and covered with beech, pine, and sycamore 
trees, with a thick undergrowth of cane, vines, and 
luxuriant shrul)bery. The eastern shore, which the 
party were now gradually leaving, sloped away into 
two embankments, one rising above the other with 
considerable abruptness, and then spreading out into 
the field of which we have spoken. 

While the conveyance of the men across the river 
was progressing. Dale, with Austill, James Smith, 
G. W. Creagh, and a few others, determined to par- 
take of the provisions they had found in the Indian 
pack. In the old field, on the second bank, they 
kindled a fire for the purpose of cooking these, and 
were about, in the language of Dale himself, " to 
make use of the hriled bones, and hot ash-cake, " 
when they were startled by the discharge of several 
rifles, and the sudden war-whoops of some twenty-five 
or thirty Indians, who came rushing towards them 
from three sides of the field. Dale's party inmiedi- 
ately seizing their rifles, and being too few to oppose 
the force of the enemy, dashed down the second or 
upper bank of the river, and took post among the trees, 
whence they kept in check the approach of the savages. 



314 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

By tills time the canoes had conveyed all but twelve 
of the entire force to the opposite side of the river, 
and one canoe alone had returned for the residue. 
This was the first thought of the little party, who 
were now hemmed by the Indians. But simultaneously 
with the attack by land, a large canoe, containing 
eleven warriors, had issued from a bend in the river 
above, and descended rapidly with the evident design 
of intercepting communication with the opposite shore. 
They now attempted to approach the shore, and join 
in the attack, but were kept at a distance by the well- 
directed fire of a few of Dale's men. Two of their 
number how^ever leaped into the river, and swam, with 
their rifles above their heads, for the bank, just above 
the mouth of a little creek, near the northern corner of 
the field. One of these, as he approached the shore, 
was shot by Smith; but Austill, in attempting to 
intercept the other, was thrown by the under-wood, 
and rolled into the water within a few feet of his 
antagonist. The Indian reached the shore, and ran 
up the bank. Austill, in pursuing him, through the 
cane, was fired at, in mistake for an Indian, by Creagh, 
and narrowly escaped. 

During this bye-scene. Dale and the other eight of 
his valiant companions were interchanging hot fires 
with the enemy. Those in the canoe sheltered them- 
selves by lying in its bottom, and firing over the sides. 
The party on shore were deteiTed from pressing closely 
by an ignorance of the number of Dale's forces. This 
cause alone saved them from certain destruction. But 
the circumstances were now growing more critical. 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 315 

Soon the Indians must discover the weakness of their 
opponents, and rush forward with irresistible superi- 
ority. A more perilous position can scarcely be imag- 
ined : and yet there was one in this contest ! 

Dale, seeing the superiority of the enemy, called 
out to his comrades on the opposite shore for assistance. 
They had remained, thus far, inefficient, but excited 
spectators of the scene. But now eight of their number 
leaped into their canoe, and bore out towards the enemy. 
Upon approaching near enough, however, to discover 
the number of the Indians, the man in the bow, be- 
coming alarmed at the superiority of the foe, ordered 
the paddles to " back water,'' and they returned to 
land ! Dale, indignant at this cowardice, demanded 
of his men, who would join him in an attack upon the 
Indian canoe ? Austill and Smith immediately vol- 
unteered ; and with a negro, as steersman, named 
Cfesar, the little party embarked for the dreadful en- 
counter. As they approached, one of the Indians 
fired without effect. When within thirty feet. Smith 
fired and probably wounded xin Indian, whose shoulder 
was visible above the canoe. Dale and Austill at- 
tempted to fire, but their priming having been wet, 
their guns could not be discharged. Fortunately the 
Indians had exhausted their powder. The white party 
now bore down, in silence, upon the foe. As the boats 
came in contact at the bows, the Indians all leaped to 
their feet. Austill was in front, and bore for a mo- 
ment the brunt of the battle. But, by the order of 
Dale, the negro swayed round the canoe, and " Big 
Sam" leaped into the enemy's boat, giving more room 



316 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

to Smith and Aiistill, and pressing together the In- 
dians, who were already too crowded. The negro oc- 
cupied his time in holding the canoes together. The 
rifles of both parties were now used as clubs ; and 
dreadful were the blows both given and taken ; for 
three stouter or more gallant men than these assail- 
ants never took part in a crowded melee. The details 
of the struggle can scarcely be given. Dale's second 
blow broke the barrel of his gun, which he then ex- 
changed for Smith's, and so fought till the end of the 
scene. Austill was, at one time, prostrated by a blow 
from a war-club ; fell into the Indian canoe, between 
two of the enemy, and was about being slain by his 
assailant, when the latter was fortunately put to death 
by Smith. Austill rose, grappling with an Indian, ' 
wrested his war club from him, struck him over the 
skull, and he fell dead in the river. The last surviv- 
ing Indian had been before the war, a particular friend 
of Dale's. They had hunted together long and fami- 
liarly, and were alike distinguished for their excellence 
in those vigorous sports, so much prized by the man 
of the woods. The young Muscogee was regarded as 
one of the most chivalrous warriors of his tribe. Dale 
would always say, when, long subsequently, he narra- 
ted these circumstances, and he never did so without 
weeping, — that he '^ loved that Indian like a brother, 
and wanted to save him from the fate of the others." 
But the eye of the young warrior was filled with fire ; 
he leaped before his opponent with a proud fury ; 
cried out, in Muscogee, ^' Sam Thlucco, you're a man, 
and I am another ! Now- for it !" — and grappled in 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 317 

deadly conflict. The white man proved the victor. 
With one blow of his rifle he crushed the skull of tlie 
Indian. Tlie young Ijrave, still holding his gun firmly 
in liis hands, fell backwards into the water ; and the 
Canoe fight was over. 

The victors now employed themselves in clearing the 
canoes of the dead bodies of the Indians. The only 
weapons left, of either party, were a war-club and rifle. 
The Indians upon the shore had, during the progress 
of the fight, kept up a constant fire with the party on 
land. They now directed many shots at the canoes, 
as they approached the shore. One ball passed be- 
tween Smith and Austill, and another struck one of 
the canoes. But, in spite of this firing, Dale and his 
colleagues returned to the shore, took off their friends 
in safety, and passed across the river triumphantly. 
Notwithstanding the dangers they had encountered, 
the whole party had not lost one man, and the only 
injuries they had suffered, were some severe bruises 
received by the combatants on the water. Austill had 
a severe contusion on the top of the head, which left 
a permanent dint in the skull. It was subsequt^ntly 
ascertained that the entu'e Indian force, on land and 
water, was two hundred and eighty. 

Such, in its details, was the Canoe Fight,— certainly 
the most remarkable of our naval engagements. 
Neither Porter at Valparaiso, nor Perry on Lake Erie, 
displayed more reckless courage, or indomitable forti- 
tude, than did these backwoodsmen of Alabama. The 
difference, as far as personal achievement, is all in fa- 
vor of the latter. The statements made may be relied 



318 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

on as strictly true. They are collated from accounts 
given by the actors themselves ; and the events were 
witnessed by many who are still living to attest their 
truth. 

Brightly shone the eyes of the anxious occupants of 
Fort Madison, when, on the very evening of this 
bloody engagement. Dale and his gallant comrades, by 
a forced march of twelve miles, returned to that place. 
Loud were the plaudits of all, and aged gossip and 
prattling child learned to utter the names of the Heroes 
of the Canoe Fight with admhation and pride. 

The war went on, with many stirring adventures and 
bloody incidents ; but these we cannot now enumerate, 
except casually, in connection with the biographies of 
Dale, Smith, and Austill. They each marched with 
Gen. Claiborne in his expedition to the Holy Ground, 
and acted conspicuous parts in the battle there fought, 
on the 23d of December, 1813. Austill, in particular, 
distinguished himself, 4)y crossing the river in a canoe, 
with Pushmataha, the great Choctaw chief, and six 
warriors, in front of the enemy^s fire, putting a large 
party to flight, and capturing a considerable quantity 
of baggage and provisions. 

The army having returned to Fort Claiborne, the 
volunteers and militia were disbanded, as their time 
of service had expired, and returned home, leaving only 
a small force of regulars under Col. Gilbert C. Rus- 
sell, at that place. The troops, however, from 
along the Tombeckbee, and the fork of the rivers, 
were not willing to leave the frontiers thus poorly de- 
fended, and they accordingly formed a force of volun- 



THE CANOE FlGflT 319 

teers, under Colonel Joseph E. Carson, with Reuben 
Saflbld, Charles Devereaux, John Wells, and — : — Mc- 
Farland, as Captains; Smith and Austillwere Sergeants 
in this command, which acted as rangers ^rom Claiborne 
to the Gulf, and frequently encountered parties of In- 
dians, and killed many of them. 

After the conclusion of the war, Dale became an 
agent of Gen. Jackson and the other American officers 
in command at Forts Claiborne and Montgomery and 
at Mobile, to watch the proceedings of the British and 
Spaniards at Pensacola, performing many hazardous 
enterprises, and mainly communicating the intelligence 
which led to the seizure of that post — bearing him- 
self a part in its assault and capture. 

Smith and Austill lapsed back into private life,— 
resuming agricultural pursuits in Clarke County, which 
they had so gallantly defended. Smith, in a few years, 
removed to eastern Mississippi and there died, respected 
for his sterling qualities of character. 

Austill removed to Mobile, and engaged in commer- 
cial pursuits, greatly esteemed for his intelligence, 
integrity, and energy of character. For one session he 
has served in the State Legislature. At the present 
time (1857) he partly divides his time Avith agricultural 
pursuits in Clarke, and is in the enjoyment of vigorous 
health, looking many years younger than he really is. 

The career of Samuel Dale was more conspicuous 
than that of his two associates in the Canoe Fight. 
In 1817, the people of Monroe, then a rich and flour- 
ishing county, chose him Tax Collector ; but, by a fire, 
he lost a portion of the funds in his hands, and be- 



320 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

came a defaulter, in the sum of three hundred dollars. 
This the Legislature in 1821, by an Act, exonerated 
him from paying. His misfortunes drew attention to 
his services., and at the same session an Act was 
passed "expressing the gratitude of the State of 
Alabama, for the services rendered by Samuel Dale." 
It recapitulated, in a laudatory preamble, his pre- 
eminent services during the war, and stated that he 
had " exposed himself to privations, hardships and 
difficulties that have impaired his constitution and re- 
duced him to indigence :" also, that from a want of 
sufficient vouchers, he had never received any com- 
pensation from the G-eneral Government. It, therefore, 
enacted that " the Treasurer be and he is hereby re- 
quired to pay to the said Col. Samuel Dale, half the pay 
now allowed by the General Government to Colonels 
in the army of the United States. And that he is 
hereby declared a Brevet Brigadier General, in the 
militia of this State, and shall rank as such Avhenever 
called into the service of this State. And the Gover- 
nor is hereby required to commission him accordingly; 
and that the Treasurer is authorized and required to 
pay to said Brevet Brigadier General ^amuel Dale, 
on the first day of January, in each and every year, 
the half-pay as aforesaid for and during his life, out of 
any monies in the Treasury not otherwise appropriated." 
This act, so creditable to the gratitude of our people, 
was permitted to operate for two years, when, upon 
some constitutional scruple, it was repealed, and a 
memorial pressing Gen. Dale's claims on the General 
Government was sent to Congress in the name of 



THE CANOE FIGHT. 321 

the State. It is an eloquent vindication of his right 
to remuneration, and nays, among other things, that 
" during the war he frequently went on express with 
dispatches from the armies in this country, to the State 
of Georgia, tln-ough a hostile country of Indians, of 
nearly three hundred miles, and almost every foot of 
the journey, through the woods, and therehy rendering 
services to our armies which no body else could be found 
who would undertake or who would perform. Com- 
l)ensation in money, or by grant of lands in this State, 
is earnestly besought." 

To this appeal of the State of Alabama in behalf 
of an old and indigent soldier, who, it was said, had, 
" at the head of small parties, waged a gallant partisan 
war, surj)assed 2)robably in no age or country, and 
which will some day form an interesting page in 
American History," — Congress continued to turn a deaf 
ear, and, it is believed, he never received any assistance 
from the Federal Government. He made several in- 
effectual visits to Washington City for that purpose. 
His fellow- citizens of Monroe County were, however, 
more kind and considerate. Besides ministering to his 
];)ecuniary wants, they elected him on several occasions 
a member of the General Assembly. The State also 
showed her honors for him by establishing a county 
with his name, in December, 1824. After a short 
residence in Perry County, Gen. Dale, in 1835, removed 
to Lauderdale County, Mississippi, and the next year 
was elected to the Legislature of that State. He, how- 
ever, had little taste for public life, and passed his time 
chieily on his farm, which was a favorite resort of white 



322 SKETCHES AN'D ESSAYS. 

visitors who loved to hear the old warrior recount his 
adventures, and of a neighbouring band of Choctaws, 
still lingering in the State, who also gazed with curi- 
osity and admiration on ''■ Big Sam/' and partook of 
his bounty always liberally bestowed. 

On the twenty- third day of May, 1841, this old 
hero, pioneer and guide closed his many fights, — pass- 
ing through the last struggle with more calmness and 
serenity than he had ever exhibited before. He died, 
says a friend, with the fortitude of a soldier, and the 
resignation of a christian. The day had been one of 
cloud and tempest, but ended with a golden snnset : 
no unfit type of a career of struggle and suffering, 
brightened at the close by the purest consolations of 
humanity. A Choctaw warrior stood, the next even- 
ing, by his grave, and exclaimed in his rude vernacu- 
lar : "■ Sleep here. Big Sam, but your sphit is now a 
Brave and a Chieftain in the hunting-grounds of the 

sky V' 

This rambling record here must end. We have 
shown the condition and character of our earliest An- 
glo-American population ; the Red Sea of trials and 
sufferings through which they had to pass ; the li'a- 
gile bark that floated in triumph through the perils 
of the tide ; and the heroic performances of the three 
master spirits of the period. From such rude and 
troublous beginnings, the present prosperous poj^ula- 
tion of Alabama, acquired the right to say, " Here we 
rest \" 



THE FAWN OF PASCAGOULA; 



OR, THE 



CHUMPA" OIR,L OF MOBTX^E, 



Shall I tell you a story of real life as romantic and 
affecting as any you will find in fiction ? Well — lis- 
ten ! Every citizen of Mobile is familiar with the sight 
of the Indian girls who are in our streets in the winter. 
With their little bundles of lightwood upon their backs, 
they mark the advent of cold weather as regularly as 
the mocking-bird and the cardinal chronicle the ap- 
proach of Spring./ They peddle their small parcels of 
pine from door to door, and all are familiar with the 
soft, quick, petitionary voice in which they exclaim 
^^cliumpa," as they offer their cheap burdens for sale. 

These Indian girls, it is well known, belong to cer- 
tain Choctaw families, wlio refused to emigrate with 
their tribe beyond the Mississippi, and yet linger upon 
their aboriginal hunting-grounds on the waters of the 
Pearl and Pascagoula.) Though they thus exhibit an 
unconquerable attachment to their native soil, they 
have yet refused to adopt the habits, language or pur- 



324 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

suits of the whites by whom they are surrounded, and 
are perversely indifferent to all the inducements of 
civilization. They persist in leading a species of 
savage gipsy life — the men sustaining themselves by 
hunting, and the women, by vending whortle-berries, 
and other wild fruits in the summer, and bundles of 
pine in the winter. With these simple productions, 
they visit Mobile semi-annually, and for the time 
reside in the vicinity, in small huts or camps, con- 
structed of bark, boards, or the limbs of trees. This 
has been their custom from time immemorial, and it 
yet continues. 

^ These Indians are generally a miserable and ignorant 
race, but with all their degradation, they possess some 
of the virtues in a singular degree. The women are 
proverbially chaste and modest, and, of all the young 
girls that annually visit our city, none have been 
known to depart from the paths of rectitude. \ A strong 
interest therefore surrounds these simple daughters of 
the woods, who resist all the blandishments of their 
station, and pass unharmed through the streets of our 
city. Many of them are quite handsome, and possess, 
beneath their rustic garbs — the calico gown and the red 
blanket — considerable graces of manner and appear- 
ance. As they invariably refuse to talk English, veiy 
little conversation can be had with them, and that only 
in reference to the small bargains which they desire to 
make. "(77mmj9a," and ^^ picayune," are almost the 
only words which they employ in their intercourse with 
our inhabitants. Still, they are not reserved in their 
movements where they wish to make a bargain, and 



THE FAWN OF PASCAGOULA. 325 

enter the different houses of the city, stores, dwellings, 
and offices, without ceremony, hesitation or announce- 
ment. Who has not been startled many a morning, by 
a voice, at the chamber-door, exclaiming "Chumpa?" 
The stoical demeanor of these Choctaw maidens has 
often led to the impression that they are destitute of 
the natural sensibilities and sentiments of their sex. 
They have bright, flashing eyes, w^ell developed, 
symmetrical and flexile forms, beautiful small hands 
and feet, and show, in their love for brilliant articles 
of dress, rings, beads, and other personal decorations, 
the taste and vanity of their civilized sisters ; is it 
possible that they are destitute of those delicate sym- 
pathies and tender affections which have marked woman 
in all other classes and conditions of life .^ This question 
has doubtless suggested itself to many, as an interesting 
problem of character. In one instance, at least, an 
attempt — perhaps a heartless one — was made to solve 
it, and it is to that the story which I have to tell refers. 
It came to my knowledge in all its details, but I will 
attempt to narrate it in such a manner as not to detain 
the reader with particulars which he can imagine for 
himself. 

^ Among the Choctaw gipsies, who visited Mobile in 
the winter of 1846, was one of unusual beauty and 
attractiveness. Although scarcely developed into 
womanhood — not more than seventeen ^' suns" having 
kissed the rich bronze of her cheek — she was yet tall, 
round-limbed, straight and graceful — a very model of 
feminine form. Her features, more prominent and 
regular than is usual with her tribe, were delicately 



326 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

sculptured, and the erect attitude of her head, with 
her large fawn-like eyes, and abundant coal-black hair, 
always neatly plaited in massive folds, gave to her 
appearance an air of superiority such as the youthful 
Pocahontas is said to have possessed. Her dress was 
extremely neat, though with a large number of silver 
and wampum ornaments, and her small feet, which 
any of the fair promenaders on Dauphin might have 
envied, were invariably dressed in moccasins, orna- 
mented in the most fanciful style with many colored 
beads. As she walked about the streets of Mobile, 
arrayed in this way, with her parcel of pine swung 
across her shoulders, she attracted the attention of' all 
spectators, for her beauty, though she would hold con- 
verse with none except in the few words, by which she 
endeavored to dispose of her burden. 

Much interest was naturally felt in this young girl, 
and many efforts were made to learn something of her 
character and history. Nothing further could be 
gleaned, (and this was told by " Captain Billy," a 
drunken Choctaw, frequently seen, in garrulous moods, 
in our streets,) than that she was the daughter of an 
Indian Chief of much note, who died many years before, 
leaving her, an only child, with her mother, in their 
cabin on the Pascagoula. Her singular beauty had 
made her quite a belle with the young Choctaw war- 
riors, but she was very shy, and was called in the In- 
dian tongue. The Wild Fawn of Pascagoula. -She 
supported her mother, who was very old, and herself, 
by her traffic in berries and '^ lightwood." Her per- 
sonal charms made her one of the most successful 



THK FAWN UF PASCAGOULA. 327 

dealers in these articles, and every one, particularly the 
young men of Mobile, were glad to give the preference 
in their patronage to this young and attractive creature. 
Many were the efforts made to gain her smiles, and 
enlist her in conversation, but they were all in vain. 
She would go her daily round, and enter with perfect 
imreserve, the rooms or offices of her patrons, deposit 
her little load of pine, receive her dime, and then 
quickly retire ^ith, the sticks in her hands, to procure 
another parcel. > 

Things glided on in this way for some months, dur- 
ing the winter of which I speak. At last an event oc- 
curred, which tested the stoicism and character of the 
young Fawn of Pascagoula. Among those whom she 
daily supplied witli lightwood, was a young lawyer, 
residing in an office in the second story of a building 
on one of our principal streets. Admiring the beauty 
of this timid visitor, and feeling a strong interest in 
her, he determined to see if he could not, by kindness 
of manner, deferential notice, and elegant presents, 
win the heart of this simple child of the woods. 
Though his motive was mainly curiosity, his purposes 
were not bad, and he had no idea of doing any injury to 
the object of his experiment — by paying her those at- 
tentions which had been found potent to enchain the 
admiration, and win tlie love of more enlightened and 
accomplished maidens. He was a man of uncommon 
personal beauty, and singularly fascinating manners, 
and all these he brought to bear, as well as he could, 
to effect "his innocent, and, as he thought, harmless 
^irtation. \ 



328 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

It is needless to detail the arts resorted to by Henry 
-Howard to win the heart of the Fawn of Pascagoula. 
He began in the most modest and deferential manner ; 
he purchased from her, much more frequently than he 
needed, supplies of fuel, paid her larger sums than she 
asked, and made her presents of trinkets, pictures, and 
little ornaments of dress, and accomodated himself in 
every way to her apparent wishes. These things con- 
tinued for some weeks, and at last began to have obvi- 
ous effects. The Fawn tarried longer in her visits at 
his office than elsewhere ; she always came there first, 
and took an evident interest in his attentions. At 
length she began to answer his remarks in such few 
words of English as she could command, and to look 
upon his handsome and fascinating countenance with 
pleased smiles and earnest continued attention. The 
spell evidently began to work! Henry Howard un- 
derstood the secrets of woman's heart well ; but here 
he had to deal with an untutored Indian girl, timid as a 
bird, and whose springs of emotion and sympathy could 
not be determined by the ordinary standards of feeling. V 

Do not think that I am depicting those subtle arts 
of fascination by which the rattle-snake lures and 
captivates the humming-bird. There was no purpose 
of evil in the heart of the young attorney. He was 
but practising, with a simple savage heart, those tricks 
and elegancies of intercourse, which are recognized as 
legitimate in civilized society. He wished to see if 
the same affections could be developed in the beaded 
beauty of the forest, as are to be found with the pol- 
ished belle of the ball-room and the boudoir. Tho 



THE FAWN OF FASCAGOULA. 329 

probabilities were, that the experiment would not 
succeed — a casuist would therefore think it harmless. 

Months had passed in this way, and Henry Howard 
at last determined to make a more obvious demonstra- 
tion of his love, to the Fawn of Pascagoula. One 
cold morning in February, just as he had finished his 
toilet, he heard a light step at the door, and a well- 
known voice, as the speaker entered, playfully ex- 
claiming '^chmnpa^ cTiumpa!" Arrayed in her most 
beautiful dress, with a band of silver around her hair, and 
long necklaces of beads falling from her graceful neck, 
the Fawn stood before him. She threw her armful of 
pine upon the hearth, and looked smiling into his face. 
In his most graceful manner he approached her and 
took her hand in his. Suddenly he encircled her waist 
with his arm, and, drawing her to him he imprinted 
upon her lips, a long and fervent kiss. Modestly she 
looked into his face, with a slight expression of sur- 
prise, but not dissatisfaction ; and then he poured 
forth to her warm and urgent words of love. Neither 
were these coldly spoken, for the young and ardent ad- 
mirer had been no little interested in the object of his 
attentions. As he was about, however, to repeat his 
kisses, the now startled Fawn, by a quick movement, 
unloosed herself from his embraces, and glided across 
the room. 

" Stand off, Mr. Howard," she exclaimed in better 
English than he had ever heard her speak before, " Me 
good friend to kind gentleman — but no love ! The 
Fawn must many her own ])eople. She love young 
wanior up on Pascagoula ! He have heart and skin 



330 SKETCHES AND ESSAYS. 

the same color ! Mobile man not good for Choctaw 
girl. Me go to my home- — to Choctaw Chiefs cabin — 
to morrow. Grood-by ! Me love you much, — you so 
kind, — but no wife ! " 

As she said this, she drew her red blanket as proudly 
about her, as ever a fashionable belle donned her 
mantilla at a ball, and glided from the door. Struck 
as motionless as a statue, the elegant Henry Howard, 
the Mobile dandy, stood gazing at the door through 
which the young Choctaw girl had vanished ! His lii^s 
were slightly parted, his eyes widely open, — a look of 
wonder and doubt upon his handsome face ! 

" By heavens V he exclaimed, '' Is it possible ! 
Caught in my own trap ! Jilted by an Indian ! 
Well ! it's a good joke, and all right ! But, by Te- 
cumseh and Pushmataha ! I must take care that the 
belles of Mobile do not find out the story. Let who 
will hereafter ex23eriment upon Choctaw character, to 
discover whether these Chumpa-girls have not like 
affections with other people, I, for one, am satisfied. 

This Fawn of Pascagoula has for months taken all 
my j)resents and delicate attentions with the timid 
gentleness of a nun, and now has given me the sack as 
completely as it could have been done by any fashion- 
able coquette in a gilded saloon, by the light of a chan- 
delier. Well, that's something rich ! Bravo ! Henry 
Howard ! Recollect hereafter, as Tom Moore says : 

' What'er her lot, she'll have her will, 
And Woman, will be Woman still.' " 

THE END. 



2V, 



v3 



